I have no plans to invade any region or join the World Assembly with any of these nations. I just want to experiment with different methods of reaching a specific goal. Is this breaking any of the rules? I didn't see it addressed in the FAQ.
You may have as many nations as you like, but only one active WA nation at a time. Several of the moderators maintain hundreds of nations and a couple people even maintain thousands.
Silencing an opponent is not the same as converting him.