There's a lot to take away from this fascinating story on foreign fighters with the YPG in Rojava (northern Syria). Thoughts incoming. (1/?) rollingstone.com/politics/polit…
1. Foreign fighters are consequential. The "Antifa Platoon", along with Arab SDF fighters, turned out to be instrumental in turning the tide against the Islamic State in Raqqa. FFs are a diverse group with diverse skills that contribute in a variety of ways in-theater.
2. Ideology is not only the purview of terrorists. Much like in the Spanish Civil War, foreign fighters with the YPG are often leftist-Marxist revolutionaries drawn to the Kurdish independence movement.
(2a. We should really spend more time studying the Spanish Civil War.)
3. Ideology is transferable. Upon trying to return to Rojava and finding this impossible, some foreign fighters went to Ukraine to fight in a different sort of revolutionary conflict. The desire to fight persisted wherever the opportunity to do so existed.
