Since the original Decisive Action Training
Environment (DATE) was released over nine years
ago, many users across the US Army, along with
several allies, have found ways to challenge training
objectives by applying the PMESII-PT conditions
described in the five Caucasus countries in multiple
ways. These five countries provided operational
environments (OEs) with a multitude of challenging
conditions set on the terrain in the Caucasus region.
In 2015, in an effort to expose Soldiers at training
events to challenges outside of the original DATE
terrain in the Caucasus region, the Chief of Staff of
the Army (CSA) directed the creation of new OEs to
be set in other regions around the globe. TRADOC
G2 responded to this directive with the creation of
fourteen new OEs spread across three new regions:
Africa, Europe, and Pacific. The addition of these
new OEs enriches the overall environment, allows
conditions unique to a greater variety of regions, and
consequently provides more options for training.
The original DATE, previously known as DATE
3.0, has been renamed as DATE Caucasus in order
to highlight the geographic region of focus. This
renaming has created a new naming convention that has
been applied to the three new DATEs so that all four
DATEs are now referred to by the geographic region
of focus in the environment. This naming convention
also contributes to communicating to the community
of interest that all four DATEs are equal; no one
environment is primary. To clarify further, just because
DATE Caucasus predates the other DATEs, it doesn’t
carry more weight than the others when it comes to
supporting training