Well of course - you don't form a military alliance if you're not fighting against anyone. ;) In times of peace, at best you have a non-confrontation peace treaty, trade agreements, etc, but the state of an "alliance" is always in response to a perceived threat.

Though, it constantly bothers me that early on "The Horde" referred *almost* solely to the Orcs, whereas the modern-day "The Horde" refers to factions who joined up during and after the Third war. Sure, there were always troll mercenaries, but these sold their services to anyone - Human or Orc - and lorewise, are not the same Trolls that make up the Horde membership today.

I'm very happy with where the Alliance is today. Fairly strongly united, even managing to convince an outside race who had nothing to do with Azeroth's former battles, to join them in taking the fight to the Lich King. Certainly preferable to an alliance where two factions (undead/blood elves) would happily slaughter every other member of their alliance if they could only figure out how to do it.

Agreed - but "The Horde plus a few autonomous malicious factions" just doesn't have the same ring to it :p.

Then again, these days you could pretty much call the alliance "The Alliance plus some purple people and werewolves."