Erica has BIG STONKS.
I love the world Kishiro-sensei built, finally seeing the Grunthal at its peak is awesome.
And I love the image of how they terraformed the region, it is nestled inside the canyons and protected by some sort of membrane.
But I have to say... I still haven't wrapped my head around the fact that Grunthal is practically a full-fledged small nation, with all that was said I thought it was just a very big but segmented organization, but the size of this can only be qualified as a "small nation".
The operation that Alita did and that was credited with the reason to destroy the Grunthal may have much more behind it, a nation of extremely skilled martial artists that not only have a structure that by the size... wouldn't doubt they had industry too.
And at the point, Alita did the mission, I wouldn't doubt too that the logistics of it would have already reached a level where many other nations were already scared of what they had/could become... and some people must have been aware of Austad's ambitions.