Secretary of state invoked historic figures from Socrates to Julius Caesar to make the case for Trump's nationalist agenda
By Vera Bergengruen and Robbie Gramer
ATHENS -- In a sunset speech framed by ancient Greek ruins, Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday argued that the Trump administration's "unapologetic pursuit of national power" offers a model to revive Western power rather than threaten alliances.
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," he told the audience of some 250 people -- including foreign officials, Greek Orthodox priests and military officers -- gathered on the Pnyx, a hill where ancient Athenians gathered for democratic debate.
"Power requires not only having the means to defend yourself; it requires the credibility that you are willing to use it," he added.
Rubio gave his address during a visit to Athens, part of a four-day tour of NATO allies that also included Iceland and Portugal.
Eight months earlier, during a speech before world leaders in Munich, Rubio had warned European allies that their policies on mass migration, climate change and globalization were leading to the West's "managed decline" and warned of "civilizational erasure."
Now, he returned to argue that Europe was beginning to heed the call.
"We believe that Europe can awaken from its long slumber and rekindle the fire that was here millennia ago," he said, adding that there were "already signs" of a European revival through its rapidly increasing military spending and industrial production. "We are witnessing what we hope will be the beginning of a generational shift," Rubio said.
The speech was also one of the latest efforts by Rubio, who serves as Trump's top diplomat as well as his national security adviser, to give an intellectual and historical backbone to the "America First" policies he has grown to embrace. By tracing Trump's muscular nationalism back through the history of ancient Greece, Rome and Christian Europe, he sought to portray the transactional and often disruptive approach, which he once criticized, as part of a Western tradition.
He 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 demands to control the self-governing Danish territory "one way or the other" set off a diplomatic crisis within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and badly strained relations before an agreement last month expanding 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 lofty speech 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 on Wednesday praised Greece as a model ally that has embraced many of these policies and been at the center of Europe's shift toward greater military strength and national self-reliance. He announced $4 billion in U.S. military sales and a new program to increase information sharing for counterterrorism efforts.
With many Trump cabinet members crisscrossing the U.S. ahead of contentious midterm elections, Rubio has stepped up foreign travel in recent months from South America to Asia and Europe to sell the administration's worldview to allies abroad. The carefully choreographed and heavily promoted speech has added to speculation about Rubio's future presidential ambitions, though top aides say he remains focused on the job at hand.
Rubio spent much of the speech outlining Western ideals of heroism and duty, reaching back through millennia to invoke historic figures from Socrates and the Spartans to Roman ruler Julius Caesar, Frankish emperor Charlemagne and Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés.
America's enemies embody the opposite, Rubio said. "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."