Rich in references to ancient Greek thought, philosophy and art, as well as to pivotal moments of classical antiquity, such as the Homeric epics, the Persian Wars and Athenian hegemony, was yesterday’s speech by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the shadow of the Acropolis. On his first visit to Greece, and with a deep understanding of the challenges in the wider region, the US Secretary of State laid out his personal political platform, almost a month before the midterm elections and with an eye toward the 2028 presidential election.

Directly linking American democracy, which celebrates 250 years of existence this year, with ancient Greek democracy, and praising the timelessness of the Parthenon as an unshakable symbol of Western civilization, Marco Rubio sought to reconnect 21st-century Western politics with the “Golden Age” of Pericles, through the lens of the realism embodied by Thucydides. “The history of America, the history of my country, is covered with the fingerprints of antiquity. Greece is literally etched into the architecture of our government: in the towering columns, the domes and the monuments throughout our capital,” he noted.

“At the same time, the city where our Constitution was born — Philadelphia — is itself a Greek name,” the US Secretary of State reminded his audience, as he focused on the “founders” of the American nation and their influence on decision-making centers from ancient Greece.

“Speech of the Year”

Rubio’s speech against the backdrop of the sacred rock of the Acropolis was commented on and analyzed by major international media outlets, with the most characteristic comment coming from the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal: “As a dynamic and timely response, we propose Marco Rubio’s speech Wednesday at Greece’s Acropolis. In our view, it is the speech of the year.”

“Marco Rubio went to the heart of the matter by saying at the Acropolis that the West can be reborn by recalling its historical virtues and ambitions,” the article states. It adds that “the Western world is facing a crisis of confidence, moral and political, which is eroding its prosperity and its willingness to defend its principles. As a dynamic and timely response, we propose Marco Rubio’s speech Wednesday at Greece’s Acropolis. It is not often these days that you hear a politician speak about ‘the West,’ much less make the substantive connection between the present day and our heritage from Athens and Jerusalem. We wish we heard it more often.”

“Rubio calls on Europe to awaken from its ‘slumber’ and preserve the West’s dominance. In Greece, the US Secretary of State said Western states must bring back to the fore an older mindset of exploration and conquest as part of their culture in order to remain ‘at the top of the world,’” the New York Times reports in its presentation of the Secretary of State’s speech in Athens.

“Marco Rubio uses a striking backdrop to sketch out a post-MAGA foreign policy,” CNN writes, reading Wednesday’s speech through a more “American” lens. “In the golden light of an Athenian sunset, with the Acropolis behind him, Marco Rubio looked anything but like a man planning to withdraw from the political stage. The US Secretary of State’s speech in Greece on Wednesday is certain to rekindle speculation about his future presidential ambitions. Indirectly, it presented him both as a successor to and a modernizer of the ‘America First’ movement — just weeks before the 2028 race moves fully into gear after the midterm elections.”

According to the Guardian, “Rubio in Greece looks to the past to promote Trump’s ‘America First’ approach.” As the British outlet notes in its analysis, “in the shadow of the Parthenon, the US Secretary of State presented a selective reading of history, calling on Europe to ‘wake from its slumber,’” arguing that “the US Secretary of State delivered a classical-antiquity-inspired apologia for Donald Trump’s foreign policy, giving a sweeping speech against the backdrop of the Parthenon in Athens that seemed ideal for campaign ads should he run for president in 2028. In his speech, America’s top diplomat drew historical parallels, from the founders, philosophers and conquerors of antiquity to the modern American spirit, as well as to his own family’s journey to the United States. The highly polished speech contained a forceful rejection of the kind of globalized politics that Trump has blamed for America’s and Europe’s problems, including rising illegal immigration and the relocation of manufacturing overseas. Rubio warned that the Western world is at a ‘turning point’ and defended the ‘unapologetic pursuit of national power’ by the United States.”

Plutarch and… Jefferson

It is characteristic that “the men who founded my country were fascinated by the heritage we inherited from yours. They were extremely well educated in history — they were acutely aware of their unique place in it — but no other era of the past captured their attention or imagination as much as antiquity. Many, many people are surprised to learn that the author most frequently cited in the Federalist Papers was not a philosopher or political theorist of the Enlightenment. No, the author most frequently cited in the Federalist Papers was Plutarch, the Greek biographer of Greece and the great men of Rome,” Mr. Rubio observed.

“Crusade” for the West

At the same time, he took aim at the international order in the post-globalization era: “the word ‘nationalism’ became a dirty word. So we tore down our monuments. We condemned our history. And in far 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 industries, and allowed our armies to wither and decay. And with every passing year, we seemed to outsource more and more of our sovereignty, transferring our decisions to global bureaucracies far beyond our control,” the US Secretary of State argued, sounding the call for the reclamation of Western ideas in an informal ideological “crusade.”

As Marco Rubio said, “together we must now rediscover that spirit. We are at a turning point — a turning point not only in the history of my nation, but a turning point in our entire civilization,” since the “threats we face today are every bit as real as they were on the dramatic stage of antiquity.”

Putting forward the logic of the nation-state along Westphalian lines, “national interests did not disappear in the face of international institutions. War did not disappear simply because we preferred peace. Other states continued to arm themselves, pursue influence, compete for territory, technology, resources, markets, energy and power,” he argued, speaking in terms of great-power competition and from a realist perspective on international relations.

Clear Warnings

“And now, there is war again. There is once again new competition among the great powers. There is once again vulnerability, aggression, terrorism, an entire universe of new threats and attacks,” he explained, while pointing to the rise of revisionism internationally as a dangerous symptom.

“But others were very happy to fill the vacuum we left — the vacuum left behind by our weakness. And as the confidence of the West was shaken, its adversaries became increasingly assertive, building their own wealth and their own power in our place,” the US Secretary of State observed, warning of the new balance of power in a multipolar world.

Homer and Kleos

In the programmatic — and preliminary, ahead of the 2028 presidential election — framework, Marco Rubio set out the values of the MAGA era, saying that “here, in Athens, we found the first full realization of all the essential characteristics that would define the West: fierce individuality and relentless ambition; bold exploration and ingenuity; a yearning for discovery, for adventure, risk and glory,” sketching the characteristics of the Western citizen-voter in 2026, that is, at a time when debate in the US revolves around space, the Arctic and Artificial Intelligence.