West must embrace 'national power' or face decline: Rubio

ATHENS, Oct 7: The western world must embrace "national power" and technological innovation or risk sliding into decline, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was set to warn on Wednesday during a visit to Greece.

His speech, which will be packed with praise for ancient heroes such as Alexander the Great, follows an address in February where he argued that Europe was threatened by mass immigration and called for it to defend Christian civilisation.

This time he will say the West is "at a crossroads" that will determine whether it "maintains its place at the head of the world, or resigns itself to a future of atrophy, servitude, and decline".

"Either we choose to act now, or lose the choice to act at all," he was set to say, according to excerpts from a speech he is to deliver later near the Acropolis.

The US 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 is to say.

Rubio will speak from the ancient site of the Pnyx, the hill facing the Acropolis in Athens and the birthplace of Western democracy.�"AFP