Did You Know That US Army Created & Maintains A Fictional World Entirely For Training Purposes With An Insanely Detailed Backstory & Lore? - Brilliant Maps

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Map found on X by @ZeldaZealotThe map above shows the World as created The Decisive Action Training Environment (DATE).

It is essentially the U.S. Army’s enormous fictional geopolitical universe for training exercises.

More about it:

It is a bit like a military version of a very detailed strategy-game world: invented countries have governments, ethnic groups, religions, territorial disputes, economies, pipelines, political parties, armed forces, cyber capabilities, insurgents and decades of invented history.

The important twist is that the fictional states are deliberately constructed from real-world geography and real-world adversaries.

They are not supposed to be exact replicas, but in some cases the inspiration is extremely obvious.

Today DATE has grown into a global system of 24 notional countries across five interconnected regions, but the original and probably best-known setting is the Caucasus.

Why did the Army create it?

DATE emerged around 2012, as the Army began moving away from almost exclusively preparing units for Iraq and Afghanistan. Rather than telling a brigade, "You’re going to Iraq, here is the Iraqi situation," the Army wanted an environment in which units could face almost anything: conventional armies, guerrillas, terrorists, criminal networks, cyberattacks, information warfare, drones, refugees and political crises simultaneously.

The Army describes it as an unclassified, intelligence-informed foundation for scenario development.

A DATE country can be friendly, neutral or hostile depending on the exercise. The fictionalization also allows the Army to reproduce realistic Russian-, Iranian-, Chinese- or North Korean-style capabilities without literally declaring "Russia attacks NATO" every time soldiers train. Current Army guidance explicitly says the countries are composites of real states and threat characteristics and that DATE deliberately avoids directly depicting specific real-world governments as the adversary.

The original Caucasus DATE world is particularly fascinating.

DATE countryObvious real-world inspirationBasic role in the lore

DonoviaRussiaResurgent former regional hegemon; powerful military; frequently the principal adversary

ArianaIranRevolutionary Islamic regional power opposed to Western influence

AtropiaAzerbaijanOil-rich, strategically important state often looking to the West for help

GorgasGeorgiaSmall pro-Western state threatened by Donovia and separatist territories

LimariaArmeniaSmall landlocked state allied closely with Donovia and involved in a territorial conflict with Atropia

PirtuniUkraineLater addition: Western-oriented former Donovian/Soviet sphere state threatened by Donovia

The parallels go considerably beyond vague inspiration.

Atropia: essentially fictional Azerbaijan

Atropia’s capital is actually Baku. It borders the Caspian Sea, possesses major oil and gas reserves and is the starting point for a strategically important westward petroleum pipeline. Its security problem revolves around a disputed territory called Lower Janga.

Atropia usually plays the role of a vulnerable state in which American forces have a reason to intervene.

One frequently used National Training Center storyline has Donovia invade Atropia and capture the city of Razish, threatening the region’s hydrocarbon exports. U.S. forces then deploy to defend or liberate Atropia.

That particular invasion isn’t necessarily "the definitive DATE canon," exercise designers can change events, but it became so commonly used that generations of American soldiers have jokingly talked about repeatedly having to save Atropia.

Limaria: fictional Armenia

Limaria’s capital is Yerevan, it is landlocked and it maintains strong military and economic relations with Donovia.

Its central issue is Lower Janga, a region legally associated with Atropia but overwhelmingly populated by ethnic Limarians and occupied by Limaria. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by the conflict.

The analogy is barely disguised:

Atropia + Limaria + Lower Janga = Azerbaijan + Armenia + Nagorno-Karabakh.

An interesting bit of DATE history is that Limaria used to be called Minaria.

In DATE 2.2 in 2015, the Army renamed Minaria to Limaria and renamed the disputed province from Artzak to Lower Janga,  "Artzak" was presumably considered rather too close to Artsakh, the Armenian name associated with Nagorno-Karabakh.

That is why older Army material sometimes says Minaria while newer material says Limaria.

Gorgas: fictional Georgia

This one is equally transparent. Its capital is Tbilisi.

Gorgas wants closer relations with NATO and the EU, while Donovia tries to prevent that. Donovia supports two separatist regions called Zabzimek and South Ostremek.

They correspond rather neatly...