Nato summits aren’t usually paid much attention beyond the defence and foreign policy press: for example, the British media wasn’t overinvested in the 2019 summit in Watford (granted that this indifference might have been because it was in Watford, a rather nondescript suburban town). For obvious reasons, however, everyone is paying attention to Madrid 2022 and security for the descending throngs is maniacal.The schlep begins at a muster station in a commandeered high school in a suburb more or less adjacent to the venue, the Ifema convention centre. Upon receipt of laminate and lanyard, one queues for shuttle buses while police dogs take an interest in one’s bags and grumpy police ask to see the passport that you’ve already shown someone to collect the laminate. Armed officers ride the bus to the venue at a ratio of about one to every six irritable hacks. The police vehicles get progressively larger and more armoured the closer to the venue you get; at one stop, the undercarriage of the bus is searched by a bomb-disposal operative with a mirror on a pole. And when you reach the venue, they get really serious.