For a former diplomat like me, I found it confusing: I kept looking for a hierarchy, the singular leader, or signs of a government line, when, in fact, there was none; there were just groups. There was none of that stifling obedience to the party, or the obsequious deference to the “big man” — a form of government all too evident just across the borders, in Turkey to the north, and the Kurdish regional government of Iraq to the south. The confident assertiveness of young people was striking.

Vestiges of the Syrian state remain in the form of two small, isolated bases in the locality, but there are no patrols or army presence outside them. The Kurds maintain an uneasy informal truce with the Assad regime, but they emphatically want an end to the dictatorship, and believe that their form of inclusive, decentralized democracy can provide a model for the whole of Syria, and beyond.

Their democratic system is a work in progress and not without flaws. Some human rights organizations have alleged political intimidation and, in a few cases, the expulsion of Arabs suspected of collaboration with the Islamic State. A few young people I met complained about being conscripted into the Y.P.G.

But the truth is that the Kurdish forces are stretched thin. At a cemetery in Qamishli for those killed in the war, there are hundreds of graves, many freshly dug. The Y.P.G. has successfully pushed the Islamic State fighters back across a large swath of territory, from the northern border town of Kobani along a line that runs southeast until it meets the border with Iraq.

Overhead, American and coalition aircraft conduct airstrikes against Islamic State positions, but as in any war, it is foot soldiers who must take the ground — and suffer the losses. Apart from these sporadic airstrikes, the Kurds have no international support. On the contrary, their efforts are actively undermined by their neighbors, both allies of the West, to the north and south.

The Kurdish militias are critical to the fight against the Islamic State, or Daesh, as the Kurds prefer to call the jihadist movement. So it was shocking to see that front-line fighters carried only aging light weapons: Kalashnikovs and the occasional Russian-made sniper rifle. For several miles of the front, I saw very few machine guns, let alone heavier weapons like mortars, anti-tank missiles or armored vehicles — matériel that has been generously provided to the Kurdish pesh merga fighting Daesh in Iraq.

Without protest from the United States or its allies, Turkey has prohibited all movement across its border into Kurdish-controlled Syria and has effectively blocked the Y.P.G.’s advance westward by declaring a so-called safe zone west of Kobani. To the south, in Iraq, the Kurdistan regional government sees the Y.P.G. as a political rival and blocks supplies. The Y.P.G. is often forced to scavenge arms and ammunition from its defeated enemies.