Putin, 'creative' foreign policy, and India, USA & Europe: Oxford Prof decodes dynamics| HTLS 2025

Oxford professor Kate Sullivan de Estrada, at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2025, said Trump’s tariffs and erratic diplomacy have “squandered” a lot of goodwill with India, creating space for Putin and prompting Delhi to practice an even more “creative” multi‑aligned foreign policy that balances the US, Russia and Europe rather than choosing sides. She argued that Europe quietly benefits when U.S.-India trust erodes, but stressed that India still sees value in all three relationships and is leveraging its rising‑power status to keep strategic autonomy while extracting economic and security gains from each.