A Source of Security Strategy and Coalition

What do you need to get a cohesive coalition, at home or abroad? - A sense of purpose.

This is usually made by a common threat.

Thus the belief that security drives grand strategy and foreign policy.

But the threat needs not be imminent. It may comes from an experience in the past. And in this case, the purpose has been molded in this past experience. The threat becomes generic, not imminent.

Don't ask China why it builds up its military forces when nobody is threatening it. China's grand strategy is a response to its past humiliation rather than to current foreign threats.