You know, I just got an idea on how to take advantage of the CN system to really boost the growth of active members of the alliance. It will take some timing coordination, but I think it can work very nicely. It works like so:
1) One of the 'larger' (for this alliance, at least) nations sends a cash aid package to one of the smaller active members
2) The smaller nation goes into Peace mode, and uses the aid sent to just pay off bills for 10 days, buys nothing, collects no taxes
3) Once the 10 days is up, the smaller nation now has four aid slots open
4) At this point, the scheme can vary a little. Let's say that three of the larger nations all send a large cash (and include soldiers+tech too, need to work on numbers for this) aid packages to the small nation.
5) The small, and now very rich, nation begins buying infrastructure in blocks of 10, until the cash is all used up (occaisionally buy land as needed). Hold off on buying soldiers until close to the end or send soldiers with the aid
6) The small nation is now not-so-small, and also not-so-rich anymore... but it also has not collected taxes in 10 days! Leave peace mode, make sure you have all the happiness modifiers you can get, crank the tax rate up to 28%, and collect... the not-so-small nation gets tax income x10 and is rich again!
7) Use the resulting funds to ensure adequate defenses, and the boosted nation now becomes the large nation in step 1. To get the most out of it, and be able to pass along more cash, this probably means going to DEFCON 1 and buying a boatload of troops and tanks (and maybe fighters if you get boosted that high).
I'm probably not the first to think of this. Most of the big alliances are probably doing the same thing... but, anyone want to give it a shot?