A Dirty Little Secret: The U.S. Army 'Invented' 5 Fake Countries

Joseph Trevithick

Security,

Yes, the U.S. Army invents fictional countries as stand-ins for very real potential enemies.

It goes without saying that combat training should be as realistic as possible. But realism has its downside. The U.S. Army, for one, wants to be able to prepare to for war against particular countries without announcing to the whole world what it’s doing.

Thus, the American ground-combat branch invents fictional countries as stand-ins for very real potential enemies.

As of April 2015, the Army had constructed five different made-up states — complete with elaborate back-stories — for its soldiers to defend, invade, occupy and rebuild during high-intensity war games at U.S. training ranges.

The fictional countries of Ariana, Atropia, Donovia, Gorgas and Limaria are clustered in a fictional Caucasian landscape that stretches between the real-world borders of Russia and Iran. Together, the five states comprise the so-called “Decisive Action Training Environment,” or DATE.

There’s a master DATE handbook. “Exercise planners should use this document for all exercise and scenario design requirements,” the introduction to the latest edition of the handbook explains. “The DATE was developed and designed to allow for flexibility and creativity in its application.”

War Is Boring obtained the latest copy of this document—version 2.2 , dated April 2015— via the Freedom of Information Act. Reading in many instances like the rule book for a tabletop war game that you might play at home, the manual gives Army officials the tools to build almost any imaginable kind of pretend conflict.

Each country has detailed political structures, economic considerations, troop types, military equipment and other features that would impact how American soldiers might operate in it during a shooting war. A central story-line links their narratives together in a common, imaginary world.

While not officially modeled on any particular real countries, the DATE clearly reflects real-world states and events.

The use of mock groups for training is hardly new in the Army. After World War II, the ground combat branch cooked up the “Circle Trigonists,” who first represented facists and then morphed into communists.