(snip)
Still, fact is that Aztechnology could annihilate the CAS in about an hour if they really wanted to, and there's nothing anyone can do about it, and if Ares did try anything there's just a good a chance that they'd get curb-stomped by the rest of the Big Ten because megacorps don't go to war with each other.
yes and no.
The CAS suffers from two major vulnerabilities, one economic and one cultural. The cultural is actually more important so I'll do the economic first.
The economic is that the CAS portion of the US is hit, regularly, with hurricanes. The US eats the regular cost of repair and recovery. The CAS is smaller and, as noted elsewhere, most of the big corps are homed elsewhere. Regardless of any other thought, corporations are more willing to spend recovering at "home" than where their customers might be. The CAS is, compared to the other north american nations, poor.
Exacerbating this is their culture. Quite simply, the CAS is barely a nation. There's a proverb I first encountered researching Afghanistan but it applies: me against my brother, my brother and I against my cousins, we cousins against the world. Southern culture is inherently very untrusting of "outsiders". The famous southern hospitality and courtesy isn't because they love their neighbor, it's to reduce the likelihood of unwanted bloodshed.
A smart attacker will hit the multiple fracture points as part of the attack and splinter the nation putting state against state and city against city - and in some cases (Atlanta v Georgia) city against state.
The problem is that this same culture becomes a quagmire once invaded. The Georgians may despise the Mississipians, but they're blood brothers against the Aztlan (or UCAS or anyone else). Think of the problems the US and Nato have had in Afghanistan. Now picture what it would be like if that nation had access to a developed first world manufacturing base and trained a first-world military.
Aztlan would shatter the CAS in a few days with commanders "dipping their toes in the Atlantic" in a week or two. Pacifying and controlling the CAS would take at least a generation, and would require a huge portion of the Aztlan resources to accomplish. That would make them vulnerable to other nations, and possibly to a hostile takeover from one of the hungry almost-AAAs.