The Chern–Simons theory of an SU(2) gauge theory in three dimensions is looked at from a perturbative point of view. The pure Chern–Simons action is generalized by adding a conventional Yang–Mills action term. This acts as a singular perturbation. The resulting theory has a moduli space containing that of the pure Chern–Simons version; for certain discrete values of the perturbation parameter lying in the spectrum of an appropriate elliptic operator the enlargement of the moduli space can be made explicit. The extrema can be classified by a Hessian with a finite index and nullity without recourse to spectral flow. Corrections to the resultant quantum theory are also calculated. Also, the quantum theory of the present model should be better behaved than in the unperturbed case.