I have no answer to getting flattened by ABs, Arkuss. Almost certainly you start by dropping most of the empty land (to cut the cost of re-building such acres as you can manage). But apart from that I have nothing to offer.

If you have a worthwhile chunk of Spy/Warfare tech you can turn into quite a surprisingly powerful suicide country after dropping the acres. :)

Going back to recovering from GSs an additional point is that you have to watch out for the point at which you have recovered enough population to get near your maximum because at that point setting tax to 70 will lose you population. So at that point put tax back to 35-37, whatever your favourite number is, and the job is done.