Moreover, rules are important for small states because they provide a shared basis and platform to make common cause, and this ability to harness strength in numbers will be increasingly critical to coordinate interests when great powers begin throwing their weight around.
It is for this reason that even in the face of the brazen exercise of power, the importance of rules in the international system must continue to be emphasised: not as a trope or naive expression of lofty moral ideals, but as principle upon which the interests and existence of small states rests.
Finally, Singapore has had, and must continue to have, good relations with big powers in keeping with its own national interests, whether for reasons of market access, technology development or defence cooperation.
But we must be clear-eyed about these relationships. Whether in the Western Hemisphere, the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East or the Arctic, the fact is that big powers don’t deal in altruism, not least when their interests are at stake.
While Stranger Things came to an end last week, the geopolitical “Upside Down” is here to stay. How small states can survive and flourish within this new reality is going to be the challenge of the age.
Professor Joseph Liow Chinyong is Dean and Wang Gungwu Professor in East Asian Affairs at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.