SUMMITRY 101 — YVES BRODEUR knows where to find the action at NATO summits. Brodeur was Canada's ambassador to the military alliance between 2011 and 2015. He choreographed the elaborate details that set the stage for then-prime minister STEPHEN HARPER's arrival in Chicago in 2012 and Wales in 2014. — The state of play: World leaders in Vilnius are searching for consensus on massive questions that could reshape the global geopolitical landscape. The big headlines revolve around Ukraine's potential membership in the alliance. — A day before the summit: Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY urged NATO to offer his country a pathway into the club. The alliance is still negotiating the terms, POLITICO's LILI BAYER reports. — Also in the works: Until Monday, Sweden's NATO accession wasn't a slam dunk. But the ground shifted quickly in the leadup to the summit. Turkish President RECEP TAYYIP ERDOĞAN tried to use Sweden's accession into NATO as a bargaining chip for Turkish membership in the European Union, POLITICO's GABRIEL GAVIN reports. A game-changing trilateral meeting Monday between Erdoǧan, Swedish PM ULF KRISTERSSON and NATO Secretary General JENS STOLTENBERG produced a deal. Turkey agreed to support Sweden's application. POLITICO's Bayer has the details. — Still out there: Hungary has also refused to back the bid, though Stoltenberg says Hungarian Prime Minister VIKTOR ORBAN has promised his country would not be the last holdout. — So far unresolved: There's also the issue of members spending 2 percent of GDP on defense — a tricky one for the Canadian delegation, which wants to change the math on what counts as spending. FOLLOW THE LEADERS — For all the diplomatic prep work in a frenzied pre-summit period, the thorniest issues don't get decided by ambassadors or ministers. The final call on those falls to the bosses. — Not all meetings are equal: Some are scripted. Others are spontaneous. Some are friendly. Others are frank. Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU's agenda could include all of the above. Brodeur explains which rooms in Vilnius will matter most. — The working dinner: This is one of the most reliably important gatherings — a staple of the alliance's summits that can be more freewheeling than the formal plenary sessions where leaders typically express solidarity. Tonight, Lithuanian President GITANAS NAUSĖDA hosts NATO leaders at the country's presidential palace for a "social dinner." These working dinners "tended to be open and frank," says Brodeur. "Sometimes harsh. It's a crucial moment during the summit" for leaders to exchange views. It's not for public consumption, and Brodeur has never heard of any leaks. In Brodeur's time, each leader was allowed only a handful of guests. That roster could include a minister, ambassador or senior adviser. But a slightly larger group from each delegation had its ears on the proceedings from a "listening room." Their job was to solve impasses in real time. — The bilats: One-on-one time is a key component of summitry for leaders who don't see each other often. They also offer a more intimate opportunity to practice the art of persuasion. "Generally speaking, the bilaterals are aimed at trying to convince a reluctant nation to endorse something that they don't want to," says Brodeur. — Case in point: U.S. President JOE BIDEN's planned tête-à-tête with Erdoǧan (first reported by POLITICO's JONATHAN LEMIRE and ALEX WARD), in which Biden was reportedly planning to convince the Turkish leader to back Sweden's bid. POTUS will also meet with Zelenskyy on Wednesday. — Lemire and Ward on the goal: "Biden will look to convince Zelenskyy that removing a series of bureaucratic hurdles and reforms, in addition to a large security commitment by the U.S. and some NATO allies, was the most Kyiv could get in Vilnius this year." — Bilats will be plentiful: Brodeur says diplomats spend weeks hammering out agendas with counterparts, and then write scripts to guide the leaders' conversation. Choreography is often the goal. Friendly leaders can go off-script. So can unfriendly ones. Sometimes a PM or president will spontaneously corner a counterpart on the sidelines. Meetings can last five minutes, or they can stretch to 20. It can depend on the leaders' relationship, the issues at play, the venue, the agenda and even the time of day. — The bottom line: NATO ambassadors don't sleep a lot during summits. Brodeur would typically return home between 1 and 2 a.m., and be back in action at 6 a.m. | 
