The ancient Near East in the second millennium BC was considerably more internationally connected than the 'national histories' framework tends to suggest. Egypt, Hatti (the Hittites), Mitanni, Assyria, Babylon, Cyprus, and the Aegean were connected by diplomatic correspondence, royal marriages, gift exchange, and commercial networks that operated simultaneously.

The Amarna letters, written in Akkadian (the diplomatic language of the period) document this international system with extraordinary directness. Kings address each other as 'brother' and discuss the exchange of daughters in marriage, complaints about inadequate gifts, and requests for physicians and craftsmen. The intimacy and the frank discussion of political interests give these letters a quality entirely different from the monumental propaganda of the same period.

The concept of a 'club of great powers' — a small group of states whose rulers dealt with each other as near-equals while treating smaller states as subordinates — is one of the more interesting frameworks for understanding Bronze Age international relations. It anticipates modern ideas about great power management of international order by three thousand years.

The Hittite-Egyptian treaty after the Battle of Qadesh (c. 1259 BC) is the oldest surviving peace treaty in history. Both the Egyptian and Hittite versions survive — the Egyptian carved on temple walls at Karnak and Abu Simbel, the Hittite in cuneiform on clay tablets found at Hattusa. A replica hangs at the United Nations headquarters in New York.