IntroductionOnly in its fiftieth year, Singapore has been through a roller-coaster ride, having had clashes with superpowers, lobbying for sanctions and enjoying good ties with neighbors. I argue that Singapore's foreign policy must always be exceptional to be successful. Exceptionalism – defined with respect to theories about the limited nature of small state behavior – involves actions contrary to these expectations, possibly requiring the deliberate, proactive, and tactful pursuit of small states of influence and power. The inherent and unique challenges of Singapore's foreign policy – ​​which are influenced by the structural disadvantages of small states – vis-à-vis its objectives that these difficulties prevent from pursuing, require it to always be exceptional in bridging this gap. First, the challenge is how, due to its size, it addresses vulnerabilities and the risk of irrelevance to other powers. Secondly, its hostile geopolitical environment towards small states constitutes the current scenario of its foreign affairs. Third, due to the outward orientation of its internal development model, it needs to interact and assert itself in a foreign policy biased against small states. These foreign policy challenges prevent the achievement of its objectives, the maintenance of sovereignty and the satisfaction of needs for the prosperity of society, which require the advancement of economic and political objectives in the international sphere. To resolve the tensions between these paradoxical challenges and goals, Singapore cannot fail to live up to exceptionalism. Furthermore, there appears to be a lack of viable alternatives to exceptionalism. While strategic resources, Great Power connections, and the use of multilateral institutions may allow one to circumvent the weaknesses of small states, they fail to provide…half of the paper…the decoupled nature of domestic and foreign affairs of Singapore doesn't do this. necessarily means that it may not achieve exceptionalism. Conclusion There is a surprising misalignment between Singapore's foreign policy challenges and objectives. Being a small state, it suffers from inherent vulnerabilities and the risk of irrelevance; the challenges arising from its size are compounded by its hostile geopolitical environment and its need to constantly interact with the foreign policy environment due to its outward orientation. Because these challenges pose contradictions to the pursuit of its foreign policy goals, it must always be exceptional to succeed. It appears that there is a lack of viable alternatives to exceptionalism, since its most promising options – leveraging its strategic resources, multilateral institutions or Great Power strategy – do not allow it to escape the weaknesses of small states..