The conventional understanding of Singapore's foreign policy can be summarized in three main propositions: first, it is dictated by the imperatives of being a small state; second, its primary purpose is to ensure Singapore's survival, given its small size; and third, this logic of survival dictates a realpolitik approach to foreign policy and national security. This book argues that an exclusively realist view of Singapore's foreign policy is inadequate. Singapore's foreign policy is also shaped by the positive effects of economic interdependence and regional institution-building instruments that realists tend to dismiss, but which Singapore has self-consciously tried to promote as instruments of regional order.