This is crazy but..

[IBender]

So I couldnt duplicate this issue. I do believe it was a result of me doing something I have never done before. During setup for Global War, I set up a country (taking a long time trying to learn and be thorough) then save the game, reload next day set up next country...save and just do one country per day. Basically trying to get a more complete understanding of the game and resources etc. This is the only thing I did diffferently.

Setting up a global game recently (right after the buggy setup) I just set up normally, all in one sitting and everything was fine.