2010s

201X
Colorado senator Steven Armstrong enacts small-government legislation, which slashes the government budget. Consequentially, this leads to World Marshal Inc. buying out the Denver Police Department.

The Patriots conduct research regarding a perpetual energy source. The research is extensive enough that Doktor speculates that they may have nearly successfully completed one prior to their destruction.

The Patriots experiment on at least thirty individuals that result in them having cybernetic left arms that house several of their data.

A Middle Eastern country suffers turmoil due to ethnic conflicts and lack of economic development. Many local militias join the PMCs to escape poverty, while the regime funds rival PMCs to enforce order, due to the fear of terrorism. The regime also hires British PMC Praying Mantis due to the group's involvement in the Iraq War.

In a South American country, a new government comes to power after ousting the old regime. Several soldiers of the state army are dissatisfied with the regime change, and leave to form an armed resistance movement against the new government. In response, the new regime requests that French PMC Pieuvre Armement aid them in fighting the rebels.

Five CID units are killed while operating undercover to investigate PMC activities. Meryl Silverburgh and Rat Patrol Team 01 are dispatched.

Blade Wolf is created.

Sundowner reactivates Blade Wolf, keeping it for some time before becoming bored with the AI and giving it to Mistral.

Late 2009—Early 2010
Rosemary has Raiden's baby, but tells him she had a miscarriage. After Raiden leaves her, she pretends to be married to Roy Campbell to keep herself and her baby safe.

2010
April 8th: The New START Treaty is signed, reducing the number of strategic nuclear missile launchers in the U.S. and Russia by half.

September: The Stuxnet computer worm strikes the Natanz Nuclear Facility in Iran, significantly raising the profile for cyberwarfare internationally.

Precipitated by the Arsenal Gear Incident, the U.S. begins to actively enlist PMC troops.

America withdraws troops from Iraq, local armies entrusted to PMCs.

2011
Raiden infiltrates Area 51 in order to rescue Sunny, who is then left to Solid Snake and Otacon. He later drifts around the globe, ultimately ending up in Alaska where he learns scouting techniques from a tribal elder.

Worldwide demands for PMCs increase, with disputes intensifying. The five largest PMCs are now run by a single mother company known as Outer Heaven, run by Liquid Ocelot.

ArmsTech Security (now known as AT Corp) implements the SOP System, which allows governments to keep check on all soldiers engaged in combat action. PMC activity further intensifies.

The Touhoku Earthquake and Tsunami takes place.

U.S. Navy SEALs find and kill Osama bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda and the man who ordered the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in Pakistan.

The end of the second war in Iraq.

2012
Raiden is captured by the Patriots. They fit him with a cybernetic suit as part of their Exoskeletal Enhancement project.

Raiden is rescued by Big Mama and the Paradise Lost Army. Drago Pettrovich Madnar saves Raiden's life.

America's nuclear arsenal is replaced with reliable replacement warheads (RRWs) that are ID locked on JD's level.

2013—2014
An American company plans to build an oil pipeline in an Eastern European country, and its pro-U.S. government approves PMC units to be stationed there to provide "security" during construction. Tensions rise between the government and the anti-U.S. opposition and a riot soon breaks out near the American embassy. U.S. PMC Raven Sword suppresses the riot, placing the government directly into Washington's front pocket, and opens up the country to a large-scale hunt down of the Paradise Lost Army resistance movement.

2014
The Patriots release information on Big Boss and CQC.

Solid Snake, now suffering from accelerated aging, is unofficially requested by Roy Campbell to assassinate Liquid Ocelot. He accepts.

Three days later, Solid Snake infiltrates the Middle East, meeting Rat Patrol 01. The SOP system malfunctions. Snake fails in his mission.

Solid Snake infiltrates South America in order to rescue Naomi Hunter. Snake successfully rescues Naomi and escapes with her and an injured Raiden.

Solid Snake infiltrates Eastern Europe with the help of Meryl Silverburgh and Rat Patrol Team 01. By this time the country's entire transportation network is shut down, with checkpoints everywhere. Snake meets with Paradise Lost leader Big Mama and discovers the location of Big Boss's presumed body. Liquid Ocelot captures the body, actually that of Solidus Snake, and uses it to access SOP before destroying it. Liquid locks down SOP during an attempted arrest by U.S. forces and escapes after killing dozens of American soldiers. Big Mama, a.k.a. EVA, dies from exposure to the new FOXDIE virus in Solid Snake.

Roy Campbell attends a UN-sanctioned ration swap meet. The swap meet reveals that the worst made rations in all of the UN are the ones in America.

Solid Snake infiltrates Shadow Moses once again in order to stop Liquid Ocelot from retrieving the rail gun from Metal Gear REX. Vamp dies for the last time. Naomi Hunter dies of cancer after disabling her self-sustaining nanomachines.

Solid Snake makes it onto Outer Haven. He unknowingly uploads the FOXALIVE virus to JD, the Patriots' lead AI, destroying it. The SOP system collapses with it.

Liquid Ocelot "vanishes" after a brutal fistfight with Old Snake.

Revolver Ocelot dies from the FOXDIE virus.

Meryl marries Johnny Sasaki and makes peace with her father.

Rose makes her peace with Raiden and Raiden meets his son for the first time.

Solid Snake visits the grave of his father, Big Boss. He attempts to commit suicide but relents at the last moment, only to encounter Big Boss one final time.

Big Boss suffocates a now near-dead Zero by cutting off his life support system, before making peace with his son and dying from the FOXDIE virus.

Solid Snake spends his final days living in solitude with Otacon and Sunny.

Late 2014—2015
Raiden returns to the battlefield as a military instructor and VIP bodyguard, after joining the PMSC Maverick Security Consulting, Inc., as a means of supporting Rosemary and Little John. One of his first assignments involved the European country of Montenegro, where he had to recover three Albanian mafiosos under the request of the Carabinieri. He and Maverick were later contracted with aiding in the reconstruction efforts and training of the military of an African nation that endured a costly civil war.

2015
A massacre occurs in St. Petersburg, Russia, which is believed to have been instigated by European terrorist Andrey Dolzaev and the PMC Desperado Enforcement LLC..

2016
Colorado Senator Steven Armstrong is investigated by a federal grand jury for his connections to World Marshal, the largest PMC after Outer Heaven and all five of its subsidiaries were shut down.

The Russians develop a plant in Abkhazia, near Sukhumi.

Solis Space & Aeronautics make their own launch site after branching off from Peterson Air Force Base.

Samuel Rodrigues breaks into World Marshal Headquarters, intending to assassinate its leaders for sending others to die and keeping the status quo. He ends up fighting Senator Armstrong, losing his arm and joining Desperado Enforcement LLC.

2017
A terror spree occurs within Georgia, which is believed to have been instigated by Dolzaev and the PMC Desperado Enforcement LLC.

December: Solis commences test flights nearly every day up to May 2018.

2018
Late March: At least half of the contractors at World Marshal Inc.'s contracts are not renewed by the United States Government.

April:  Maverick's efforts in the rebuilding of an African country is successful. However, during a meeting between Raiden and the country's Prime Minister N'mani, Desperado ambushes the convoy and proceeds to kidnap N'mani, who is later killed by Sundowner. Samuel Rodrigues prevents Raiden from aiding N'mani, causing Raiden significant injuries that force him to adopt a new cyborg body. During Raiden's reconstructive surgery, Maverick secretly retrieves several corrupted data files from his severed left arm on a weekly basis, in order to avoid rival PMCs stumbling upon and exploiting them.

Three weeks later, Desperado, alongside Dolzaev, instigate a military coup against the parliamentary government of Abkhazia, transforming it into a military junta overnight, with Mistral being in direct command of the military coups' forces during this time. Khamsin is killed while attempting to stop the then-AWOL Blade Wolf, which had secretly been manipulated by Mistral. Raiden is deployed to Sukhumi, Abkhazia, after personally requesting that he actively participate in driving Desperado out, in order to restore the parliamentary government to its rightful owners. Desperado, anticipating this, dispatches a reluctant Blade Wolf to assassinate Raiden, but is defeated. Raiden then travels to the plant, where he duels and kills the Desperado captain Mistral. Dolzaev commits suicide by detonating a power pylon at the plant shortly thereafter.

The first batch of cyborg brain casings for the Sears Program were shipped to World Marshal HQ.

May:  Raiden, alongside a rebuilt Blade Wolf, infiltrate a secret Desperado research facility in Guadalajara, Mexico, via a sewer entrance. They later rescue a Guyanese boy named George, who had escaped from the facility. During their infiltration of the base, Raiden discovers that Desperado have been kidnapping children in order to remove their brains and place them in cyborg bodies. After analysis of video files transmitted to Doktor, they realize that the children are to be made into child soldiers under the Sears Program, meant to replicate Solidus Snake's training methods during the Liberian Civil War. Raiden rescues the children and George, the latter of whom was recaptured by the lab before Maverick could get to him and escort him to safety.

Afterwards, Raiden travels to Denver to target World Marshal, Desperado's partner in the Sears Project, and a PMC that Senator Steven Armstrong has ties to. Because his actions would be considered illegal, he abruptly resigns from Maverick. He then makes his way to the headquarters, also killing Monsoon, after having his Jack the Ripper persona re-emerge after an emotionally breaking lecture from Sam. He confronts and kills Sundowner on the building's rooftop, and deduces that Armstong's Operation Tecumseh will involve creating a false flag operation, causing Raiden to suspect that it involved assassinating President Hamilton and then making it seem as though he died as a result of Pakistani rebels at the Shabhazabad military base. Knowing they'll need Mach 23 to reach the base in time, Raiden travels to Solis, after ensuring that Doktor's flight path for the brain casings was clear. He then steals a motorbike to escape from Denver, and in a final duel with Sam, kills him.

Upon arrival at Solis, Raiden is sent via a spacecraft designed by Sunny to Pakistan in close proximity to the base. He then infiltrates the base and ends up fighting Metal Gear EXCELSUS and a nanomachine-enhanced Armstrong, learning that Hamilton had been redirected to America due to the base being overrun by cyborgs. He ultimately kills Armstrong.

Late 2018
President Hamilton reattempts negotiations in Pakistan, with the promise of a joint effort against terrorism. Despite Armstrong's death, the use of PMCs continues to rise. Raiden resigns permanently from Maverick, deciding to fight his own war.

Doktor manages to develop a cyborg job center, giving the children who became cyborgs due to World Marshal's machinations, a job outside of conflict, as well as ensuring they at least got an education.

Behind the scenes
A more precise date for the events of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots may be implied by a checkboard that Sunny uses to record the chickens' egg laying, on board the Nomad. This checkboard, visible during each briefing, remains unchanged throughout the game, and shows March having less marks than January or February, and April and May having no marks.