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Rubio touts US power, calls on Europe to emerge from ‘slumber’

08 October 2026 01:28 (UTC +04:00)

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday flexed American power and called on Europe to shake off its “long slumber” in a rousing speech delivered beneath the Acropolis in Athens, APA reports.

“We believe that Europe can awaken from its long slumber and rekindle the fire that was lit here millennia ago,” Rubio said in a speech attended by senior Greek officials at Pnyx hill, praising ancient Greece’s civilisation as the cradle of Western democracy.

“Across this continent, we are witnessing what we hope will be the beginning of a generational shift, skyrocketing defense spending, a flurry of new partnerships and programs, expanded manufacturing and production, following on the historic defense commitments” made last year at the NATO summit in The Hague, he noted.

But Rubio also warned that that Western civilisation now finds itself “at a crossroads” between “national power” and decline.

The ancient Greeks “understood that power requires not only having the means to defend yourself, it requires the credibility that you are willing to use it,” he said.

“This is the classical understanding of politics and of statecraft that the Trump administration hopes to reclaim... not just for our country, but for the whole of our civilisation,” said the former senator, who is seen as a possible successor to Donald Trump.

‘National power’

“Today, we find ourselves at a crossroads. The next decade will write the story of the next century. 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, servitude, and decline,” Rubio said.

The United States under President Donald Trump has made its choice, according to Rubio.

“We choose the unapologetic pursuit of national power: to take back control of our critical supply chains, to reindustrialise our economy, to rebuild our defence, to fight for dominance of the technologies and industries of the future,” he said.