We extend cross-border strategic alliance knowledge base by introducing dyad-specific antagonism (animosity between nation pairs), and hold that the formation and the type of firm-level cross-border alliances are nontrivially impacted by the conflicting relations and animosity between their home nations. We examine the formation of alliances between firms among nation-dyads with and without a history of conflicts. The frequency and magnitude of conflicts increases the perception of likelihood of opportunism and dyad-specific risks materially affect the context in which firms make alliance decisions. As animosity between nations increases, the number and the probability of forming alliances within the dyad decreases. Conditional on the expected number of alliances, increased antagonistic actions of nations outside the dyad and the dissimilarity in the historical conflicts that each nation engaged in outside of the dyad (i) increase the number of equity alliances, and (ii) decrease the number of non-equity alliances as a proportion of total number of alliances. We find positive main effects of learning to contract through prior experience only for equity rather than non-equity alliances. The reputation effects for antagonism based on the relationships with nations outside of the dyad negatively moderates the positive learning effects of prior equity-alliance experience.