Do international alliances always make the world safer, or can they sometimes lead to more tension?

Nowadays, many wars and attacks are happening in the world. This makes us think about how crucial allliances and international relationships are. However, there is a vital question here: do alliances actually help us to limit wars, or they mainly lead to more tension and problems?

Firstly, many people argue that, if a country is in an alliance, it is more likely to get attacked, that is you are a target. That could happen for many reasons. The country might have military bases of other countries in its land, because you are participating in a military program, or even because the alliance itself is considered a threat to the other country. A good example is undoubtedly the Russian invasion in Ukraine, back in 2022; Ukraine wanted to join the NATO, but Russia considered NATO a threat and, as a response, it invaded Ukraine and the war continues until today.

However, I strongly believe that this argument is not strong enough. In my opinion, joining an alliance means you become more protected than you would be outside the alliance. If you get attacked, other countries will help you, maybe send military and the country that attacked you will face concequences. A good example could be again Russia-Ukraine war. Russia threatened to invade other countries of eastern Europe but didn't do it, because it knew that if it attacked a member of the NATO, it would face serious consequences. Lastly, Russia invaded Ukraine not because it was a member of the NATO, but because it said that it wants to join it. If Ukraine had become a member of the NATO, it might haven't been attacked.

Therefore, I argue that alliances might actually lead to tension sometimes, in most cases alliances limit global wars and they do make the world safer.