Had the Union not come to aid LLJK as the massive number of alliances came down on top of them, i'm not sure if the desert would still be afgoonistan.
The alliances that aided us, did not save us from any immediate danger, we helped each other with a mutual enemy that was reluctant to attack either side of their war front. By the time an attack on the Shogunate was even coordinated, we had dealt with the SeaRaiders, VRN, and some other miniature clans that I don't care enough about to remember.
The only faction that actually helped us in the circumstances you described,
might have been Sovereignty of Aegis, and that was just due to territorial disputes.
A big part of CHAOS forming in the first place was to take a legitimate, serious approach to Strat. We'd still be RS otherwise. We know we can join battles and do probably do rather well, but we want to have some territory and be a presence on the map. It's been a learning experience for all of us and I honestly don't think we've done too badly at all thus far.
Taking a serious approach to this pile of shit mod is a
very hard impossible thing to do in it's current state, so many bugs, exploits, and random shit that always goes wrong. There are no mechanics that you can always count on, something is always changing for the worse, and random unexpected shit always fucking happens. If you take this turd seriously, you're going to regret it massively.