The Tasman Alliance

**Currency** | * Tasman Dollar

Both New Zealand and Australia have long shared close relations due to their general proximity to one another and common heritage as Commonwealth nations. With New Zealand coming to host the Armor Corps and headquarters of the Armor Corps Coalition following the Two Week War, New Zealand itself was essentially unscathed by the war, while Australia was one of the first nations to be completely liberated by Armor Corps. Australia would later come to host a number of Armor Corps facilities, testing centers, and other establishments such as the Lacroix Foundation, while New Zealand became the homefront of the war effort.

As a result, the Tasman Alliance came to be less of the common plight of the two nations and more due to the Armor Corps' common use of both countries for its own needs. Although the New Zealand government remained perfectly intact throughout the war, much of its sovereignty was ceded to the Armor Corps willingly, while nothing of Australia's own formal government remained. As a matter of due course, the Tasman Alliance was therefor established to legitimize Armor Corps control of both countries through the New Zealand government. On paper, the Tasman Alliance is merely a supporter of the Armor Corps Coalition, but in effect the Alliance is simply a political union established by two puppet governments of the ACC to clear up legal matters regarding its use of the land of both respective countries.

Although perhaps patronizing, the Tasman Alliance does maintain its own military forces separate from the Armor Corps and Armor Corps Conventional Forces. The Australia-New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC), Navy Corps (ANZNC), and Air Corps (ANZAC) all staff training facilities in both countries and theoretically maintain their own chains of command, responsibilities, development and research, manning and material. In effect, the ANZAF (Australia-New Zealand Armed Forces) are essentially an auxiliary, reserve corps of conventional forces that Armor Corps specifically can call upon when needed.

## Economy

Between the two landmasses, Australia is the "backyard goldmine" of the Tasman Alliance, where many of the nation's natural resources are drawn from. Australia's abundant and diverse natural resources include extensive reserves of coal, iron, copper, gold, natural gas, uranium, and renewable energy sources. It was through these resources that the Armor Corps was able to sustain its campaign to win back the planet from the Vannai Puppets, and continue to ensure that the territory overseen directly by the Armor Corps continues to enjoy prosperity and safety.

New Zealand, on the other hand, has had its industrialization accelerated by the sponsorship of the ACC. Combined with the inflated population of refugees from the war, New Zealand saw its largely rural landscape increasingly swallowed up by a need for living space, manufacturing space, and defenses. The liberation of Australia offered some reperieve, but it was not until the end of the Human-Vannai War that large-scale relocation and repopulation efforts began. By contemporary standards, New Zealand remains a farily congested country by the end of 2019, whereas Australia has even more empty space than it did before the war. The populations of both territories, however, are confident that they will be the ones leading the way for humanity's new era of prosperity.

## Military

The Australian Defense Force was considered technologically advanced relative to its small size before the war. Shared membership in both NATO and the Commonwealth of Nations, as well as the near nonexistance of the New Zealand military, ensured little issue in establishing across-the-board standardization and integration of both national militaries into a single defensive fighting force capable of deployment to multiple locations beyond Tasman borders.

As the bulk of the Tasman Alliance's military forces are drawn from its Australian citizens the Tasman military possesses a rather distinctive character.

Funded by a full 6% of the Tasman Alliance national budget, the ANZAF possesses 34,774 active personnel with 15,462 in reserve. The equipment utilized is much the same as it was pre-war, with the EF88 "Enhanced" Austeyr being the standard service rifle of the ANZAF. The Tasman military makes use of a locally produced variant of the American M1A1 Abrams, designated the M1AUZ, to replace M1A1 losses during the Two Week War. A trade agreement with the American Coalition has eased procurement of additional M1 tanks, with most of the "AUZ" adaptations centered around feasibility of domestic production following the collapse of previous trade routes. The versatile F/A-18 remains the workhorse jet fighter of the air forces.

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