I rather clearly shouldn’t have included the link about the Kurds—it’s a distraction from the question I’m more interested in, which is why organizations like Al Qaeda and ISIS exist and are able to recruit worldwide.
Unless I’ve missed something, most eras don’t have anything comparable.
Well, to be clear, ISIS-actually-in-Iraq-and-Sryia seems quite different from modern Al-Qaeda and self-declared-ISIS-affliate-abroad.
The Spanish Civil War might be the closest match for the foreign support for ISIS-actually-in-Iraq-and-Syria. In addition to direct foreign involvement as a proxy war, it attracted significant foreign volunteers from foreign countries whose government officially opposed their citizens going to fight (like Ireland), and whose identity partially overlapped with a particular faction, (Catholics, socialists, separatists broadly defined, etc).
Although the bulk of the recruits for ISIS have come from neighboring regions, that so many Europeans have joined ISIS-actually-in-Iraq-and-Syria might just be the result of a larger population of recent immigrants who maintain some shared identity with those involved, combined with easier travel and communication.
Modern Al-Qaeda and ISIS-affliate-abroad franchise schemes do seem more unique. You certainly could not have had comparable groups without modern communication and travel. In general, you have things like authentic branding, access to funding (Gulf States), access to expert advice, possibly better scaling, risk pooling, and a sort of meritocratic weeding-out of worse strategies that incentivize geographically separate groups to affiliate rather than work independently, in fairly direct analogy to commercial franchises, along with more local interests that favor independence. I don’t know why this particular set of terminal values has geographically widespread support in the first place though.
I rather clearly shouldn’t have included the link about the Kurds—it’s a distraction from the question I’m more interested in, which is why organizations like Al Qaeda and ISIS exist and are able to recruit worldwide.
Unless I’ve missed something, most eras don’t have anything comparable.
Well, to be clear, ISIS-actually-in-Iraq-and-Sryia seems quite different from modern Al-Qaeda and self-declared-ISIS-affliate-abroad.
The Spanish Civil War might be the closest match for the foreign support for ISIS-actually-in-Iraq-and-Syria. In addition to direct foreign involvement as a proxy war, it attracted significant foreign volunteers from foreign countries whose government officially opposed their citizens going to fight (like Ireland), and whose identity partially overlapped with a particular faction, (Catholics, socialists, separatists broadly defined, etc).
Although the bulk of the recruits for ISIS have come from neighboring regions, that so many Europeans have joined ISIS-actually-in-Iraq-and-Syria might just be the result of a larger population of recent immigrants who maintain some shared identity with those involved, combined with easier travel and communication.
Modern Al-Qaeda and ISIS-affliate-abroad franchise schemes do seem more unique. You certainly could not have had comparable groups without modern communication and travel. In general, you have things like authentic branding, access to funding (Gulf States), access to expert advice, possibly better scaling, risk pooling, and a sort of meritocratic weeding-out of worse strategies that incentivize geographically separate groups to affiliate rather than work independently, in fairly direct analogy to commercial franchises, along with more local interests that favor independence. I don’t know why this particular set of terminal values has geographically widespread support in the first place though.