I've have stayed silent on this topic and this will be my only comment. I'm getting tired of the "TDA is dictating this and that to the US nation comments" over and over. This is not the case and we do not dictate to anyone except TDA members. In fact for the past several weeks we have been doing what we enjoy the most...sailing around and finding open world PvP. There have been no council decisions or demands to the US nation and especially nothing from TDA.
When the East coast was first attacked by the majority of the pirate nation TDA was there trying to defend it along with some other use clans. However, we were outnumbered and without the full support of all the other US clans that were in the Gulf it was not possible. I personally was getting 3 hours of sleep per night from defending ports for nearly a month. Literally, the port defenses were ending at 2:30-3am my time and I was getting up at 6am for work and then here to moderate the forums. This cycle repeated and lead to burnout for myself and many others as the game became more work than fun.
I'll be honest - it was frustrating that we were giving that level of effort while some clans refused to help defend the coast. Because of this TDA had to take a step back for the best interests of our group and return to having fun and finding a game/life balance.
Ultimately, the US had too many ports and this allowed the player base to spread out and isolate themselves from each other in individual groups. The best thing will be to force the US to a central area and then allow natural and sustainable expansion. We saw this with the Spanish and it is the same for all nations. Ports mean nothing if you don't have the population to defend them.
Life is short and we have no ill will toward any US clans, but hopefully these events shows the importance of a unified nation and working together. TDA, nor any single group, can defend it by themselves and it only benefits everyone to work together. When the US is ready to fight as one we will be there to fight along side.
Again, this is my only comment on this topic so any following responses, accusations, flames etc will not be responded to.