DC-3 and Boeing 367
Australasia's military expansion was bad news for the Island Nation.
Including the forces in the Philippines and Borneo, Australasia could command more than 1.3 million troops—over three times the current size of the Island Nation Army.
In the Pacific, the Island Nation was Australasia's only rival. The purpose of this expansion went without saying, and it had also caused great tension within the Island Nation.
The Island Nation of the present faced a very different situation from the Island Nation of history.
Because the Island Nation's territory was relatively small, it had almost no oil of its own. Historically, before the outbreak of World War II, the Island Nation had been extremely dependent on oil from the United States.
One set of figures illustrated just how absurdly dependent the Island Nation was on foreign oil. Before World War II, more than 90 percent of the Island Nation's total oil consumption came from imports.
Of all those imports, oil from the United States accounted for 80 percent, while more than 10 percent came from Southeast Asia, primarily the Dutch East Indies.
In this world, however, the two regions and countries that had historically supplied the Island Nation with oil—the United States and the Dutch East Indies—had both been wiped out.
This made the Island Nation's oil crisis even more severe than it had been historically, forcing it to seek other ways to maintain domestic oil consumption.
Its first solution was to buy oil from Australasia at exorbitant prices. Australasia possessed the Persian Gulf, Southeast Asia, and Australia—the world's three major oil-producing regions—and even the territory of Alaska held considerable oil reserves.
It was no exaggeration to say that Australasia's oil reserves were more than enough to last until new energy sources were discovered and became widespread.
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