Dr Emilija Pundziūtė-Gallois receives the General Jonas Žemaitis Award for a publication “The Practice of Alliance-Building: How the Contested NATO Enhanced Forward Presence Came to Life”. The article provides a detailed discussion of how NATO established the policy of enhanced Forward Presence on its Eastern Flank between 2014 and 2016 in a complex and multifaceted diplomatic game. It argues that traditional theoretical approaches, which draw on International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis or Policy Studies to analyse international public policymaking, while revealing some important aspects of global governance, fail to account for the complexity, unpredictability and even messiness of the multilateral diplomatic deliberations, reported by practitioners. This study proposes a pragmatic theoretical approach, which recognizes the fluidity of the policy process, its relational and nonlinear character, and acknowledges the multiplicity of actors with shifting identities and interests, deliberating in loosely defined spaces. The toolbox of concepts— problematization, valuation, interessment and enrolment—proposed by policy transaction approach, helpfully illuminates empirical observations about international politics and diplomacy. Emilija Pundziūtė-Gallois obtained her PhD in political science and international relations at Sciences Po in Paris, and is currently an Associate Professor at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania, and a temporary research and teaching assistant at Sciences Po Grenoble, France. She is an author of “Diplomacy of Arrogance: Russia in the Baltic States” (in French, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2015), and a number of publications on the topics of diplomacy, sociology of international relations, security and mediation, Russia and the Baltic States. Former diplomat at the Lithuanian diplomatic service, Emilija Pundziūtė-Gallois is an expert in international relations, foreign policy analysis, diplomacy, international security, peace and conflict studies. Her current research focuses on Russian power mediation in regional conflicts, its diplomacy in times of war and the problems of the European security architecture.