Rubio Delivers Speech in Greece Calling for Renewal of Western Civilization

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a speech Wednesday in Athens, Greece, calling for a renewal of Western civilization and urging allies to actively reject what he described as its decline. The address took place at the ancient ruins of the Acropolis.

Rubio's remarks built upon a theme he has frequently emphasized during his tenure, focusing on an perceived erosion of the values that underpinned Western civilization. "Secretary Rubio will deliver an address from the birthplace of Western civilization, where he will call upon Americans and Europeans alike to join together in a great renewal of the Western spirit - an inheritance stretching from Athens and Rome to Christendom to the founding of the American Republic," Dylan Johnson, the State Department's assistant secretary for global public affairs, told Fox News Digital.

Johnson added that Rubio would highlight ancient Greece's historical significance as the origin of qualities like curiosity, courage, and ambition. "He will warn that too much of our civilization has forgotten these essential qualities and urge our allies across the West to join the United States in rejecting decline, defending our shared heritage, and confronting a new era of great-power competition together."

During his visit, Rubio also announced a new counterterrorism partnership between the U.S. and Greece. He underscored Greece's importance as a "source of stability in an unstable world."

The Secretary of State previously addressed the topic of Western civilization at the Munich Security Conference in February, a speech that received a standing ovation from European leaders and garnered millions of online views. In that address, Rubio posited that for centuries prior to the end of World War II, the West had expanded globally. However, he noted, post-war devastation in Europe and the rise of communist movements led many to believe the West's era of dominance was over.

"Against that backdrop, then, as now, many came to believe that the West's age of dominance had come to an end, and that our future was destined to be a faint and feeble echo of our past. But together, our predecessors recognized that decline was a choice, and it was a choice they refused to make," Rubio stated previously.

He expressed a desire for allies not to be "shackled by guilt and shame," but rather to be proud of their culture and heritage. "We want allies that are proud of our culture and our heritage, and understand that we are heirs to the same great and noble civilization and who together with us, are willing and able to defend it," he said.

Rubio concluded by stating the U.S. does not seek to be a passive observer of the West's decline, but rather to revitalize its shared history and renew what he called the greatest civilization in human history.