With Nubia conquered and Kush destroyed, extending Egypt’s boundaries into Asia, with its multitude of city-states and unfamiliar terrain, was quite another task. The Egyptian garrison at Sharuhen and Gaza, established by Thutmose’s predecessors, seemed efficient to prevent another Hyksos-style invasion by hostile Asiatics, but this was not enough for Thutmose; he craved international recognition for Egypt as a great power, on par with the other emergent empire in the Near East, and he knew that the quickest way to win such status was a massive show of force right under the noses of his rivals. Thutmose’s predecessors of the late Middle Kingdom failed to recognize the threat posed by the Hyksos until it was too late; Thutmose was determined not to repeat the same mistake. His envoys and spies would have told him that in northern Mesopotamia, another potentially hostile power was growing in strength, the Kingdom of Mitanni. They have brought with them from central Asia the horse-drawn chariot and a class of elite charioteers called the maryannu. Mitanni had grown strong enough in the time of Ahmose to invade Anatolia and inflict a heavy defeat on the Hittite empire. By the reign of Amenhotep I, Mitanni had driven the Hittites out of Northern Syria, upsetting the delicate political balance in the Near East. It seemed only a matter of time before it encroached upon the Egyptian sphere of interest. Thutmose decided that a preemptive strike was the wisest policy. So, in the fourth year of his reign, he led a military campaign, sailing up the coast of the eastern Mediterranean and landing his forces in the friendly harbor of Kebny. From there it would be a much shorter overland march into northern Syria and to the banks of the upper Euphrates. Local intelligence sources confirmed Thutmose’s worst fears; Mitanni was indeed planning an attack on Syria-Palestine, directly threatening Egypt’s economic interests. The king lost no time in engaging with the enemy, capturing some of their horses and chariots, and to memorialize his victory, he ordered an inscription carved on the banks of the Euphrates to mark his new empire from the fourth cataract in Nubia to the Euphrates. Thutmose succeeded in neutralizing the immediate threat of Mitanni and also demonstrated Egypt’s new superpower status on the world stage, both to Mitanni and to its nervous neighbors. Thutmose decided to indulge in a classic display of triumphalist hauteur; he halted in his homeward march in the land of Niye and proceeded to hunt the herds of Syrian elephants. It was a symbolic act of subjugating untamed nature as well as the enemies. The ongoing conflicts between the Hittites and Myceneans might have given the Mitanni growing power a chance to win over the Hittites, but at the same time, and for the same reason, the Mitanni’s being busy with their conflicts with the Hittites could have given Egypt such a chance to win over the Mitanni in Syria. The delicate balance of power was one of the characteristics of the 1500 B.C’s international order, where any little conflict could be a game changer in the power structure. It is a multidimensional process, and if not calculated can result in disastrous outcomes. It looks like the Egyptians, and probably the other empires, knew well that the total elimination of rival empires would be dangerous even for their national security, because it would lead to a vacuum of power that would be filled by another empire, maybe at their own expense. They could have learned that from the experience of Babylonian destruction of Assyria resulting in Hittite destruction of Babylon itself. Another observation is that Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine have always been, unfortunately, a theater for great powers’ politics, a phenomenon that would be seen repeatedly in history even until today. That could bring us to one of the possible rules of this international order: we can conflict with each other over each other’s properties or zones of influence in the Levant, but not to destroy each other, for that is the only guarantee of the balance of power that keeps the national security of each of the great empires; otherwise, other smaller powers could rise and threaten us all. This could be the rule that kept this international order intact for some centuries. However, nothing will last forever. Another observation is that the Egyptians under Thutmose could have been the first to employ the “indivisible security” concept for the first time in history, previously they just depended on occasional campaigns to secure trade routes, but with the “Hyksos Trauma” the Egyptian had no choice but to believe that the regional security is part of their “own” national security, and that they have to go “beyond” their borders to secure their national security and to apply what I will call “advanced national security strategy,” for that they knew if they just waited at their borders, other rivals would come to them, as the Hyksos did, such strategy secured Egypt’s survival and international influence for at least a thousand years. I believe, as an Egyptian, that the Egyptians did not choose to expand, nor did they have an expansion strategy, and the reason is that they lived for 1500 years without doing that, even when they were much greater than the others during the pyramids time in the Old Kingdom, but they were forced to expand, influenced by the bitter experience of the “Hyksos Trauma” and the Kush invasions taking advantage of the Egyptian weakness. The Egyptians have always been content with their fertile lands, which for them are a heaven better than any other lands; however, the need for the implementation of an “advanced national security strategy” within the lines of the concept of “indivisible security” was a necessity for survival.

New World Order

章节
发表日期：

2025年

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Amr Mohieeldin

摘要

With Nubia conquered and Kush destroyed, extending Egypt’s boundaries into Asia, with its multitude of city-states and unfamiliar terrain, was quite another task. The Egyptian garrison at Sharuhen and Gaza, established by Thutmose’s predecessors, seemed efficient to prevent another Hyksos-style invasion by hostile Asiatics, but this was not enough for Thutmose; he craved international recognition for Egypt as a great power, on par with the other emergent empire in the Near East, and he knew that the quickest way to win such status was a massive show of force right under the noses of his rivals. Thutmose’s predecessors of the late Middle Kingdom failed to recognize the threat posed by the Hyksos until it was too late; Thutmose was determined not to repeat the same mistake. His envoys and spies would have told him that in northern Mesopotamia, another potentially hostile power was growing in strength, the Kingdom of Mitanni. They have brought with them from central Asia the horse-drawn chariot and a class of elite charioteers called the maryannu. Mitanni had grown strong enough in the time of Ahmose to invade Anatolia and inflict a heavy defeat on the Hittite empire. By the reign of Amenhotep I, Mitanni had driven the Hittites out of Northern Syria, upsetting the delicate political balance in the Near East. It seemed only a matter of time before it encroached upon the Egyptian sphere of interest. Thutmose decided that a preemptive strike was the wisest policy. So, in the fourth year of his reign, he led a military campaign, sailing up the coast of the eastern Mediterranean and landing his forces in the friendly harbor of Kebny. From there it would be a much shorter overland march into northern Syria and to the banks of the upper Euphrates. Local intelligence sources confirmed Thutmose’s worst fears; Mitanni was indeed planning an attack on Syria-Palestine, directly threatening Egypt’s economic interests. The king lost no time in engaging with the enemy, capturing some of their horses and chariots, and to memorialize his victory, he ordered an inscription carved on the banks of the Euphrates to mark his new empire from the fourth cataract in Nubia to the Euphrates. Thutmose succeeded in neutralizing the immediate threat of Mitanni and also demonstrated Egypt’s new superpower status on the world stage, both to Mitanni and to its nervous neighbors. Thutmose decided to indulge in a classic display of triumphalist hauteur; he halted in his homeward march in the land of Niye and proceeded to hunt the herds of Syrian elephants. It was a symbolic act of subjugating untamed nature as well as the enemies. The ongoing conflicts between the Hittites and Myceneans might have given the Mitanni growing power a chance to win over the Hittites, but at the same time, and for the same reason, the Mitanni’s being busy with their conflicts with the Hittites could have given Egypt such a chance to win over the Mitanni in Syria. The delicate balance of power was one of the characteristics of the 1500 B.C’s international order, where any little conflict could be a game changer in the power structure. It is a multidimensional process, and if not calculated can result in disastrous outcomes. It looks like the Egyptians, and probably the other empires, knew well that the total elimination of rival empires would be dangerous even for their national security, because it would lead to a vacuum of power that would be filled by another empire, maybe at their own expense. They could have learned that from the experience of Babylonian destruction of Assyria resulting in Hittite destruction of Babylon itself. Another observation is that Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine have always been, unfortunately, a theater for great powers’ politics, a phenomenon that would be seen repeatedly in history even until today. That could bring us to one of the possible rules of this international order: we can conflict with each other over each other’s properties or zones of influence in the Levant, but not to destroy each other, for that is the only guarantee of the balance of power that keeps the national security of each of the great empires; otherwise, other smaller powers could rise and threaten us all. This could be the rule that kept this international order intact for some centuries. However, nothing will last forever. Another observation is that the Egyptians under Thutmose could have been the first to employ the “indivisible security” concept for the first time in history, previously they just depended on occasional campaigns to secure trade routes, but with the “Hyksos Trauma” the Egyptian had no choice but to believe that the regional security is part of their “own” national security, and that they have to go “beyond” their borders to secure their national security and to apply what I will call “advanced national security strategy,” for that they knew if they just waited at their borders, other rivals would come to them, as the Hyksos did, such strategy secured Egypt’s survival and international influence for at least a thousand years. I believe, as an Egyptian, that the Egyptians did not choose to expand, nor did they have an expansion strategy, and the reason is that they lived for 1500 years without doing that, even when they were much greater than the others during the pyramids time in the Old Kingdom, but they were forced to expand, influenced by the bitter experience of the “Hyksos Trauma” and the Kush invasions taking advantage of the Egyptian weakness. The Egyptians have always been content with their fertile lands, which for them are a heaven better than any other lands; however, the need for the implementation of an “advanced national security strategy” within the lines of the concept of “indivisible security” was a necessity for survival.