Rubio tells Athens audience America First offers Western revival path

Rubio unveils $4 billion in US military sales to Greece

In a sunset speech in Athens on Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told an audience of some 250 people that included foreign officials, Greek Orthodox priests and military officers that the Trump administration’s “unapologetic pursuit of national power” offers a model to revive Western power rather than threaten alliances. Speaking from the Pnyx, the hill where ancient Athenians gathered for democratic debate, Rubio used the rare address in the birthplace of democracy to cast President Trump’s hard-edge “America First” policies, which have strained relations with Europe for a decade, as a path forward.

“The course we take will determine whether the West maintains its place at the head of the world or resigns itself to a future of atrophy and servitude and decline,” Rubio told the audience. “Power requires not only having the means to defend yourself; it requires the credibility that you are willing to use it.”

The address was part of a four-day tour of NATO allies that also included Iceland and Portugal. Rubio used the Athens venue to give an intellectual and historical backbone to the muscular nationalism he has grown to embrace since joining the administration, tracing the approach back through the history of ancient Greece, Rome and Christian Europe. He invoked Socrates and the Spartans, Roman ruler Julius Caesar, Frankish emperor Charlemagne and Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés to portray the transactional and often disruptive approach, which he once criticized, as part of a Western tradition.

Rubio pointed to the Trump administration’s recent deal with Greenland as evidence that the president’s confrontational style can ultimately produce results and strengthen alliances. Trump’s earlier demands to control the self-governing Danish territory “one way or the other” had set off a diplomatic crisis within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and badly strained transatlantic relations before an agreement last month expanded the U.S. military presence there.

“All three partners in that deal emerged victorious,” Rubio said. “We want to win together. We must win together.”

The address also produced a concrete announcement: Rubio unveiled $4 billion in U.S. military sales to Greece and a new program to increase counterterrorism information sharing. He praised Greece as a model ally that has embraced many of the policies at the center of Europe’s shift toward greater military strength and national self-reliance.

The Athens speech came eight months after Rubio warned European allies during a speech before world leaders in Munich that their policies on mass migration, climate change and globalization were leading to the West’s “managed decline” and cautioned against “civilizational erasure.” On Wednesday, he argued that Europe was beginning to heed that earlier call.

“We believe that Europe can awaken from its long slumber and rekindle the fire that was here millennia ago,” Rubio said, pointing to rapidly rising military spending and industrial production on the continent as evidence. “We are witnessing what we hope will be the beginning of a generational shift.”

The address may do little to resolve persistent doubts about whether Europe can depend on the U.S. as a long-term ally. European leaders are rattled by Trump’s trade war with allies, his reluctant support for Ukraine, and efforts by the administration to possibly dramatically reduce the U.S. military footprint across the Continent. The war in Iran has added another significant strain, leaving Europe and U.S. allies in Asia squeezed between a U.S. president angry that allies haven’t stepped up to support his military campaign and the prospect of being drawn into another lengthy Middle East conflict.

Rubio used the historical sweep of the address to contrast Western ideals with what he described as America’s adversaries. “This is wholly different from what we see even now, for example, from fanatics like the radical mullahs of Iran, whose cult of death hails child suicide bombers as national heroes and portrays martyrdom as an end to itself,” Rubio said.

The carefully choreographed and heavily promoted speech has fueled speculation about Rubio’s own presidential ambitions, though top aides said he remains focused on his current job. Rubio, who serves as Secretary of State and as Trump’s national security adviser, has stepped up foreign travel in recent months — from South America to Asia and Europe — to sell the administration’s worldview to allies abroad. Many other Trump cabinet members, meanwhile, have crisscrossed the United States ahead of contentious midterm elections.