I was going to answer in this thread, but you may still be my opponent in the final match of the tournament and it would be foolish of me to give such information away :-)
A suggestion for you, so you will have the chance to play USA and Russia.
Go with match play. Set the victory conditions for the 5 game match. You will play each of the countries once. Draw for pairings for each game, thus changing the partner structure.
Who ever collects the most victories, wins the match. Break any tie by head-to-head.
Or, if you are like me, just raid chips (and extra Japan INF and ARM, something else I have run out of in the last 2 games I played) from your Milton Bradley Classic AA game. Exactly the same size and style :-)
To add to ydavid’s comment, czech out the explanation that it gives, as far as “you could move a fighter from Hawaii to the East Indies in one turn, as long as you control both island groups.” Without Island Bases, your fighters couldn’t go anywhere near that far.