Home · Politics · Oct 8 archive
Rubio Urges West to Rediscover Greatness at Birthplace of Democracy
Confirmed
In Short: Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned from Athens that the West must reclaim its ambition or face decline.
Speaking from the birthplace of Western democracy, Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged the West to rediscover the qualities that made it great or face 'servitude and decline.'
Rubio delivered his speech beneath the Acropolis, tracing the West's inheritance from ancient Greece through Rome and Christendom to the American founding.
He argued that the West has lost confidence in its achievements, with nationalism becoming a 'dirty word,' monuments coming down, and Western history condemned.
Rubio cast the America First agenda under President Donald Trump as a reversal of decline attributed to open borders, deindustrialization, military weakness, and the surrender of national sovereignty.
He urged Europe to undertake a renewal of its own, pointing to rising defense spending, new partnerships, and expanded manufacturing as signs of a broader shift.
Rubio emphasized the need for the West to embrace 'national power' and technological innovation, warning that the decisions made in the next decade could determine the course for the next century.
He called for a 'unapologetic pursuit of national power,' including taking back control of critical supply chains, reindustrializing the economy, and rebuilding defense.
Rubio highlighted the importance of competing across advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, minerals, cyber, energy, and weapons while rebuilding American factories and pushing into space.
In his speech, Rubio praised ancient heroes such as Alexander the Great and referenced the conflicts in the Middle East and between Ukraine and Russia.
He also addressed Iran, arguing that Tehran had 'lost complete control' of the Strait of Hormuz, seeking to offer reassurance at a time when the U.S. is struggling to find a way out of the war just weeks before the midterm elections.
Background
Western culture, also known as Western civilization, European civilization, Occidental culture, Western society or simply the West, is the externally cohesive yet internally diverse culture and cultural heritage of the Western world.
What's confirmed
- “We will either choose to act now or lose the choice to act at all.” Rubio said the United States has already made its choice under President Donald Trump, casting the America First agenda as a reversal of the decline he attributed to open borders, deindustrialization, military weakness, and the surrender of national sovereignty.
- The decisions we make in the next decade will define the next century – and determine whether our civilization maintains its place at the head of the world, or resigns itself to a future of servitude and decline.
What's still developing
- At the center of Rubio’s argument was the ancient Greek concept of thumos — the spirit of ambition, courage, and pride that he said allowed civilizations not merely to survive, but to strive.
- “This is the classical understanding of politics and of statecraft that the Trump Administration hopes to reclaim — reclaim not just for our country, but for the whole of our civilization,” Rubio said.
- “Over time, we in the West came to feel ashamed of the very things that made us exceptional,” he said.
- For thousands of years, the Parthenon has stood as a testament to the Western spirit, captivating the imagination of our civilization’s artists, philosophers, and statesmen.
- Ancient Greece was the birthplace of all the essential qualities that would come to define the West: fierce individuality and relentless ambition; restless curiosity, creativity, and invention; an insatiable desire for adventure, glory, and exploration, straining to test the limits of what man can know and do.
- There, I delivered a simple message: The West is at a crossroads.
- Today, we find ourselves at an inflection point – not just in the United States, but across the whole of Western civilization.
- What the West inherited from classical Greece is not just the ambition to explore the unknown; it is the conviction that the unknown can be known.
- His speech, which will be packed with praise for ancient heroes such as Alexander the Great, follows an address in February where he argued that Europe was threatened by mass immigration and called for it to defend Christian civilization.
- "As you see a world that faces... destabilizing events, you recognize how important this alliance with Greece is to the United States," he said, referencing the conflicts in the Middle East and between Ukraine and Russia.
- "If it's not in my notes, I can't say it."
- Earlier on Wednesday, Rubio, who arrived in Greece the previous day from Iceland as part of a European tour, underlined the "critical" U.S.