Secretary of State Marco Rubio just delivered one of the most powerful defenses of Western civilization in recent memory, and a rebuke to the notion that the West should apologize for its existence.
Speaking Wednesday from the Pnyx in Athens, the historic site of the ancient city’s popular assembly, with the Acropolis behind him, Rubio traced the West’s inheritance to the ancient Athenians: curiosity, courage, ambition, a restless spirit of exploration and discovery, and a commitment to heroism, honor, and duty. Yet as the West has drifted from its roots, defending its values, taking pride in its nations, and unapologetically pursuing national interests have become a source of shame.
No longer will the United States partake.
.@SecRubio: "The things we owe to this place as Americans — and as Westerners — are actually far, far deeper... What blossomed here in this place was the Western desire to uncover all that ignorance, darkness, and distance had kept hidden from the mind of man." https://t.co/MpVem9Erhc
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 7, 2026
SECRETARY RUBIO: “Nationalism” became a dirty word. So we tore down our monuments, we condemned our own history, and in too many places we taught our children to be ashamed of the countries they would inherit. In the process we opened our borders, and outsourced our industry, and allowed our militaries to wither and to decay.
— Department of State (@StateDept) October 7, 2026
"Too often, these days, we build downwards. We design our standards to ensure that no one will lose," the Secretary of State said. "We preoccupy ourselves more with the comfort of the worst than the potential of the best. We hold the most exceptional things among us hostage to the average."
.@SecRubio: "Too often, these days, we build downwards. We design our standards to ensure that no one will lose. We preoccupy ourselves more with the comfort of the worst than the potential of the best. We hold the most exceptional things among us hostage to the average." https://t.co/p0Ln4xpRYe
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 7, 2026
The United States, Rubio went on, will no longer continue down that path. Under President Trump, America chooses progress and putting its own interests ahead of appeals to fairness.
"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. We choose to reach for new frontiers in advanced manufacturing and superintelligence, in drones, weapons, and warfare, in chips, minerals, cyber, and every other domain of human possibility, to unleash our energy, to rebuild our factories, to return our astronauts to the moon, and launch a new age of exploration in space."
"Now for all their lofty ideals, the ancient Greeks were not naive. They understood that nations have interests. They understood that statecraft requires prudence and diplomacy, but they also understood that it requires the ability to wield force when prudence and diplomacy fail," he said. "They understood that power requires not only having the means to defend yourself, it requires the credibility that you are willing to use it. This is the classical understanding of politics and of statecraft."
.@SecRubio: "Under President Trump, the United States has made its choice. 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."
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 7, 2026
The Secretary of State invited Europe to join that pursuit, a continent far further down the road of self-reproach than America intends to follow.
The West did not become great by apologizing for its ambition, and it will not remain great by teaching its people to be ashamed of what they inherited. That inheritance carries a duty: to leave the next generation something greater. America must not lower its standards, surrender its advantages, or ask permission to pursue its future. The greatest country on Earth has no obligation to slow down and wait for the rest of the world to catch up. Its duty is not to hold back. It is to lead.