But the future of the international order might be more promising when you look for precedents outside of the 20th century West. More distant history provides some dramatic examples of how multipolar systems have managed to maintain peace. The challenges the world faces today are different from those faced by the great kings and pharaohs of the ancient Middle East, and they\u2019re different from the challenges faced by traders and maharajas in the pre-modern Indian Ocean. Nonetheless, exploring both of these cases can offer some enduring lessons for making multipolarity work in the 21st century.<\/p>\n
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Side-by-side photos show two sides of a clay letter from B.C.<\/p>\n
This royal letter from Ashur-uballit, the king of Assyria, to the king of Egypt\u2014circa 1353 to 1336 B.C.\u2014was found in the late 1880s at the site of Amarna, the religious capital of Egypt under Akhenaten. The Metropolitan Museum of Art <\/p>\n
Around the middle of the second millennium B.C., the heart of the Middle East was ruled by a number of empires: Egypt, Hatti, Mitanni, Assyria, and Babylon. Egypt, as the oldest, wealthiest, and most centralized polity, held the highest status, but it was by no means a hegemon. To the North was Hatti (the empire of the Hittites), an Anatolian power that stretched into the Levant. Next, along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers toward the southeast, was the decentralized empire of Mitanni, followed by Assyria, and then Kassite Babylonia. These five powers comprised an essentially multipolar system, yet they created a stable set of relationships based on the norms of equality and reciprocity.<\/p>\n
The principle evidence for how this system worked comes from a cache of 350 letters discovered in 1887 at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt. Although the system they reflect began earlier, these letters date from between 1360-1332 B.C. They were written in Akkadian cuneiform, the lingua franca of ancient Mesopotamia, and preserved in the palace of Pharaoh Akhenaten (also known as Amenhotep IV).<\/p>\n
Political scientists who have studied these documents argue<\/a> that they offer a clear window to \u201cthe first international system known to us.\u201d According to Raymond Cohen and Raymond Westbrook, they show \u201cthe Great Powers of the entire Near East, from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, interacting among themselves, engaged in regular dynastic, commercial, and strategic relations.\u201d These interactions, Cohen and Westbrook argue, created \u201ca diplomatic regime consisting of rules, conventions, procedures, and institutions governing the representation of and the communication and negotiation between Great Kings.\u201d<\/p>\n A black-and-white map of the Middle East from the second millennium B.C.<\/p>\n A number of empires ruled the heart of the Middle East in the middle of the second millennium B.C. Amitav Acharya map<\/p>\n Diplomatic exchanges show how this regime combined both persuasion and pressure. Highly symbolic language\u2014appealing to a fellow ruler as brother, for example\u2014masked more pragmatic political calculations. Visits, gift-giving, and cultural deference all served to maintain steady communication, gather intelligence, and convey each king\u2019s commitment to their own sovereignty.<\/p>\n In this correspondence<\/a> can be found all the elements associated with later international orders. Throughout their interactions, the great kings were constantly striving for equal status. One letter, now in New York\u2019s Metropolitan Museum of Art, shows Assyria, as a newly rising power, seeking to join the brotherhood of existing powers. Its king, Ashur-uballit, sent a letter to the pharaoh of Egypt, most likely Akhenaten, that simultaneously bestowed gifts upon him while also demanding a quick response and seeking information about Egypt and its ruler. Another letter, from King Burna-Buriash of Babylon to the Egyptian pharaoh, shows the importance of reciprocity. Since the pharaoh had not sent a gift, the king of Babylon was not going to send one either: \u201cNow, although both you and I are friends, three times have your messengers come here but you did not send me one beautiful gift and therefore I did not send you one single beautiful gift.\u201d<\/p>\n This correspondence<\/a> was embedded in a system that provided for diplomatic immunity and continuous contact, using official stamps and formal ratification by rulers acting in \u201cthe presence of divine witnesses.\u201d There was also a notion of sovereign equality. Although nominally enjoying somewhat higher status, the pharaoh of Egypt was also expected to treat all other great kings as equals by giving each of them gifts of similar value. Hence, when Ashur-uballit of Assyria got less gold from Egypt than the king of Mittani, he complained, adding that the gold he received was \u201cnot enough for the pay of my messengers on the journey to and back.\u201d<\/p>\n One result of the diplomatic relationship between the great kings of the Middle East was the world\u2019s first peace treaty between Egypt and Hatti. Concluded in 1259 B.C. between Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II and Hittite King Hattusili III, the treaty, written in both Egyptian and Akkadian, contained a number of provisions<\/a> to manage conflicts between the two powerful states.<\/p>\n Photo of a clay tablet against a black background.<\/p>\n A clay tablet with the Kadesh Peace Treaty, signed between the Egyptians and the Hittites, displayed in the Istanbul Archaeological Museums. DeAgostini\/Getty Images <\/p>\n One provision<\/a> enshrined the principle of mutual non-aggression: \u201cThe Great Prince of Hatti shall not trespass against the land of Egypt forever, to take anything from it. And \u2026 the great ruler of Egypt, shall not trespass against the land of Hatti, to take from it forever.\u201d Another articulated the principle of collective security: \u201cIf another enemy come against the lands of \u2026 Egypt, and he send to the Great Prince of Hatti, saying: \u2018Come with me as reinforcement against him,\u2019 the Great Prince of Hatti shall come to him and \u2026 slay his enemy.\u201d Similarly, \u201cif another enemy come against the Great Prince of Hatti, \u2026 the great ruler of Egypt, shall come to him as reinforcement to slay his enemy.\u201d There is even a provision providing for extradition: \u201cIf a great man flee from the land of Egypt and come to \u2026 Hatti \u2026 the Great Prince of Hatti shall not receive them [but] \u2026 cause them to be brought to \u2026 the great ruler of Egypt.\u201d<\/p>\n Taken together, these letters challenge the influential view<\/a> that great-power rivalries lead to catastrophic wars. To be sure, the ancient Middle East was not without tensions, and the individual powers still waged military campaigns against their smaller neighbors. But they avoided fighting each other. According to Cohen and Westbrook<\/a>, the five empires \u201cnegotiated rather than fought\u201d and, \u201cwith rare exceptions,\u201d \u201csucceeded in accommodating each other\u2019s needs and ambitions.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, multipolar systems are not inherently stable either. The Amarna correspondence also demonstrates the conditions under which such a system can function peacefully. Maintaining regular communications and respecting norms of reciprocity are both vital for effective diplomacy.<\/p>\n Despite its significance, one hears little about the ancient Middle East order as opposed to the European concert of powers, a similar system that emerged 2,300 years later following Napoleon\u2019s defeat. The Concert of Europe, which Henry Kissinger<\/a>, among others, extolled, lasted, with interruptions, for the better part of a century. Its Middle Eastern precursor, with a greater dose of mutual respect and reciprocity, lasted at least twice as long, arguably maintaining stability<\/a> for roughly 200 years.<\/p>\n Photo of text in a book<\/p>\n A code of laws of the Malay kingdom of Malacca, an early 19th-century manuscript with the Acehnese variant of the text.British Library <\/p>\n Closely related to the fear of multipolarity is the widely held assumption<\/a> that stability and prosperity require a single dominant power. But history also provides alternative models for preserving free trade in a multipolar system. The best example of this comes from the Indian Ocean. For centuries before the arrival of European colonial powers, the Indian Ocean was the world\u2019s largest open oceanic trading system. Trade in the Indian Ocean was managed by a string of city states stretching from Malindi and Mombasa in East Africa to Hormuz and Aden in West Asia and Calicut, Malacca, and Makassar in today\u2019s South and Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n We know a fair amount about how this trading network operated<\/a> because of a legal code called the Undang-Undang Laut Melaka (Maritime Laws of Malacca). Drafted in the 15th century by a group of sea captains, it provided rules for a host of common maritime issues. The code specified the authority of a trading ship\u2019s captain and the responsibilities of the crew, as well as a method for settling contractual obligations and debts incurred at sea. It also established regulations on profit-sharing, compensation for collision damage, and penalties for cheating on port duties.<\/p>\n Malacca itself was not a great power. But as a port city, it established a trading system that was free, fair, and transparent. In the 15th century, Malacca had a population of about 100,000, mostly foreign traders, who spoke more than 80 languages. Trade was open to all nationalities<\/a> and subject to a well-established customs duty of 4 to 6 percent. Trading was far from chaotic. Instead, it was \u201cwell regulated\u201d\u2014or \u201crules-based,\u201d to use a more contemporary term. Local rulers did not interfere with foreign merchants; prices were set and disputes settled by representatives of foreign trading communities: Arabs, Indians, Chinese, and Javanese. Malacca had a system whereby the captain or owner of a ship could sell his cargo at a single price upon arrival to a group of 10 or 20 local merchants, who would then distribute the cargo among them. This system let ships clear their cargo quickly without the need to find individual buyers, something particularly important when they had to follow precise sailing times in accordance with monsoon winds. It also meant that the range of prices foreign goods would fetch in Malacca was predictable.<\/p>\n A black-and-white map of a trade network.<\/p>\n The Indian Ocean trade network. Amitav Acharya map<\/p>\n Crucially, this trading system did not depend on the hegemony of any regional power. Despite the desire of some<\/a> modern historians to suggest otherwise, the Indian Ocean was never a Chinese sphere of influence. Although many Southeast Asian states\u2014including Srivijaya, Malacca, and Siam\u2014had tributary relations with China, the trade was neither dominated nor managed by China. And although the Chinese deployed a large fleet under Adm. Zheng He seven times during the early 15th century, their goal in doing so was never to build an empire in the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n Similarly, India had a strong cultural and economic role in the Indian Ocean, but this did not imply strategic dominance<\/a>. There are only two recorded naval expeditions from India\u2014both from the southern Indian Chola kingdom, and both in the 11th century. These expeditions spread destruction but did not create a Chola empire with hegemony over the Indian Ocean. Even the mighty Moghul Empire stayed out of the business of controlling the oceans. While powers like Venice sought to expand their boundaries over the maritime domain, the Moghuls deferred to a regional tradition that prohibited this. Unlike the Mediterranean, where the sea was parceled out, or in the Hanseatic League of Europe, where the right of free trade was open only to the members of the league, Indian Ocean trade was open to all nationalities.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/3-Middle-East-BC-Empires-Egypt-Hatti-Mitanni-Assyria-Babylon.jpg\")
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