‘We want to win together; we must win together:’ Marco Rubio delivers a major speech in Athens

Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a major speech in Athens, Greece, using the Acropolis as a backdrop. He said that the West is at an ‘inflection point,’ urging the United States and Europe to work together to deal with what he described as growing threats, according to the New York Post. 

“We want to win together; we must win together,” Rubio said during the nearly 30-minute address. He also called on Europe to “awaken from its long slumber” and rebuild the connection with the values he said were established in Greece thousands of years ago.

He has a firm stance on national security. In a post made on X, Rubio announced a continued commitment to strengthening the longstanding defense and security cooperation between the United States and Greece. He described Greece as “a source of stability in an unstable world” and said the alliance remains strategically important to the U.S., as reported by Fox News.

Rubio says there’s new threats on the horizon

Rubio, a Cuban-American, said the current challenges Western countries are facing are similar in some ways to those faced by earlier civilizations. He hinted at renewed wars, competition between major powers, and terrorism as threats that require the U.S. and Europe to remain closely connected. “And now there is war again. There is competition between great powers again,” he said. 

The Secretary of State also criticized what he described as the West’s move toward open borders, outsourcing, and weaker militaries. “We opened our borders and outsourced our industry and allowed our militaries to wither and to decay,” he said. According to Rubio, Western countries gradually gave up parts of their sovereignty and became less willing to embrace ideas such as nationalism and national strength.

“The word nationalism became a dirty word,” Rubio said. He argued that Western nations had also become too focused on avoiding risk and failure, while losing sight of ideas such as heroism and sacrifice.

Iran was another major part of Rubio’s warning. He made a contrast between the Western respect for human life with the ideology of Iran’s leaders, pointing specifically to their celebration of martyrdom and child suicide bombers.

At the same time, Rubio defended President Donald Trump’s “America First” approach. “Under President Trump, the United States has made its choice,” Rubio said. “We choose the unapologetic pursuit of national power, to take back control of our critical supply chains, to reindustrialize our economy, to rebuild our defense, to fight for dominance of the technologies and industries of the future.”