P. Kristiansen, S.M. Hedetniemi, and S. T. Hedetniemi, in Alliances in graphs, J. Combin. Math. Combin. Comput. 48 (2004), 157–177, and T. W. Haynes, S. T. Hedetniemi, and M. A. Henning, in Global defensive alliances in graphs, Electron. J. Combin. 10 (2003), introduced the defensive alliance number γa(G), strong defensive alliance number aˆ(G), and global defensive alliance number γa(G). In this paper, we consider relationships between these parameters and the domination number γ(G). For any positive integers a, b, and c satisfying a ≤ c and b ≤ c, there is a graph G with a = a(G), b = γ(G), and c = γa(G). For any positive integers a, b, and c, provided a ≤ b ≤ c and c is not too much larger than a and b, there is a graph G with γ(G) = a, γa(G) = b, and γaˆ(G) = c. Given two connected graphs H1 and H2, where order(H1) ≤ order(H2), there exists a graph G with a unique minimum defensive alliance isomorphic to H1 and a unique minimum strong defensive alliance isomorphic to H2.