If transatlanticism continues to have a powerful hold on the foreign policy imagination, it is not because of presidents shaking hands with prime ministers. The relationship thrives in the many networks rallying for its existence in the face of possible decline. “By 1965 it was possible to list 10 major private groupings which had worked or were still working to promote the Atlantic idea,” historian David Ellwood has written, including the Atlantic Treaty Association, the Bilderberg Group and the Atlantic Institute in Paris. Some of these organisations have long shut their doors, but many still publish papers and sponsor research. As Harvard history professor Charles Maier has argued, Atlanticism brought with it a “new Atlantic elite”. “Transatlantic trips, common foreign policy forums, a network of clubby associations for talk and mutual self-regard created in effect a transnational ruling group … The most prominent members of the Atlantic elite achieved semi-sacral status: Marshall, McCloy, Lovett, Spaak, Monnet, and other ‘wise men’ who exhorted to common effort and cooperation.”

It is in these kinds of networks that the transatlantic partnership still flourishes: in exchanges, meet-and-greet events, leadership programmes, fellowships. Self-reflexive and defined in part by self-preservation, these institutions push the idea of European-American relations as the central axis of world power. In the language of thinktanks and funds, “Atlantic” designates not a real set of values so much as an empty form that can be filled with whatever meaning its organisers want: liberal democracy, the diplomatic partnership between the US and Europe, or the simple continuation of structures set up after the second world war and not redefined since.

It is hard not to see more than an ounce (or a gram) of nostalgia in the language of these institutions. We did the Marshall plan. Trust us. It is maybe for this reason that the Atlantic outlook has remained fixed in a changing world.