1990s

199X
Solidus Snake and Raiden participate in the Liberian Civil War. Raiden becomes an outstanding child soldier in Solidus's Small Boy Unit, earning nicknames such as "White Devil" and "Jack the Ripper."

The National Missile Defense program is first conceptualized, to the controversy of other countries.

START III is initially proposed by the Russian president during the late 1990s, but America refuses it, unwilling to lose its title as the world's sole remaining nuclear superpower. Around the same time period, rumors circulate that nearly a hundred suitcase-sized nuclear bombs were being removed from the Soviet arsenals.

Emma Emmerich is born.

Big Boss returns to the U.S. military as the commander of the Special Forces unit FOXHOUND.

Frank Jaeger is awarded the codename "Fox," the highest commemoration in FOXHOUND.

1990
In Nicaragua, the Contras agree to negotiations with the FSLN, putting an end to the conflict.

The use of conventional armed forces stabilizes between East and West, and negotiations over mutual reduction is approved by both.

After losing her parents, Nastasha Romanenko moves to the USA.

June 1st: At the Washington Summit, U.S. President George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev sign the U.S.-Soviet Agreement on Destruction and Non-Production of CW and on Measures to Facilitate the Multilateral Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

August 2nd: Iraq invades Kuwait, triggering the Gulf War.

Solid Snake joins the United States Army and, as a member of the Green Berets, is sent on a mission to infiltrate western Iraq during the Gulf War.

Liquid Snake joins the SAS and, as a member of the SAS, is also sent into the Gulf War to destroy mobile SCUD missile launchers. During the mission he becomes a prisoner of war and is declared missing in action.

Sundowner fights in the Gulf War.

October 3rd: East and West Germany are reunited.

November 19th: CFE (Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe) is signed.

1991
January 17th to February 27th: UN-authorized coalition forces launch Operation Desert Storm against Iraq during the Gulf War. The U.S. Army injects its troops with "Soldier Genes", identified from the study of Big Boss's DNA, as part of the Genome Soldier project, developed by Dr. Clark. The side effects of these injections are disguised as the Gulf War Syndrome. The Pentagon publishes a study claiming that the Gulf War Syndrome was caused by exposure to depleted uranium anti-tank rounds, to cover up the project.

January 22nd - 27th: The Special Air Service mission to set up an observation post in the main supply route between Baghdad and northwestern Iraq and possibly destroy Iraqi Scud missile launchers, Bravo Two Zero, commences, but results in failure.

February 24th - February 27th: Operation Desert Sabre, a massive ground attack conducted by the United States Armed Forces shortly after the 38-day air strike during Operation Desert Storm. The Marine who would later become Khamsin played a major role in the operation's success.

January 26th: The Somali Civil War erupts.

May 21st: The Eritrean War of Independence ends.

December 8th: The Soviet Union collapses and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) rises in its place.

December 26th: The beginning of the Algerian Civil War. The girl who would grow up to become Mistral became a child soldier in this conflict upon being orphaned at an early age.

Regulation talks over SDI come to dissatisfaction.

LNF (Long-range Nuclear Force) total abandonment commences.

Output of high-powered lasers are improved.

1992
Nastasha Romanenko joins the DIA, where she meets Richard Ames, her future husband.

March 31st: The USS Missouri is decommissioned for the second time, where it is placed in a museum in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

April 22: The sewers of the Guadalajara downtown district of Analco exploded between 10:05 and 11:16 UTC-5 time, leaving 252 casualties, over 500 injured, 15,000 left homeless, and thousands of homes ruined. Four PENEX workers were charged with negligence as a result.

August 14: Abkhazia, taking advantage of an internal coup within Georgia, declares its independence. Georgia and Abkhazia then fight in a war known as the War in Abkhazia.

October 15: The Mozambican Civil War ends.

December 3rd: The UN gets involved in the Somali Civil War. It spans for nearly four years.

Conventional arms and war machines are reduced across Europe.

The average ratio of GNP per population in Asian Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs) to the world average exceeds 10%.

Development of brain bombs.

Experiment of coil gun is successful.

The athlete who would later become the mercenary Running Man completes the 100 meter dash in 9.69 seconds, during the Barcelona Olympics.

1993
The Chemical Weapons Convention occurs.

January 3rd: The U.S. and Russia sign the START-2 to reduce the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 3,000-3,500 by the end of 2007. However, it has not been ratified since.

September 21st to October 4th: The 1993 Russian constitutional crisis. Vulcan Raven, along other members of Vympel, are demoted. Vulcan Raven decides to leave Russia and become a mercenary. He eventually joins Outer Heaven.

September 27th: The War in Abkhazia ends.

SLCM, Sea (surface or underwater) Launched Cruising Missile Regulation Treaty, is signed.

Development of the MBT Goliath begins.

Experiments on rail-velocity guns are restarted.

1994
America's Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) is established.

After years in captivity, Liquid Snake is rescued by the United States Government, and returns to the United States.

Postponement of plutonium production for military purposes commences. Krypton-85 density in the atmospheres of America and Russia begin to stabilize.

The U.S. Army restarts the development of mortar weaponry.

Laser weapon experiments begin outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

The Costa Rican government persuades Panama to abolish its military.

1995
CTBT recognized by the United Nations General Assembly

March 3rd: The UN withdraws from involvement in the Somali Civil War. The disastrous results of their involvement later resulted in their reluctance to get involved in any internal country squabbles.

Solid Snake joins FOXHOUND, unaware that he is a clone of the squadron's commander, Big Boss.

Average ratio of Japanese GNP per population to world average exceeds 60%.

NASA develops an experimental walking tank for planet exploration.

Metal Gear TX-55 is developed by Dr. Drago Pettrovich Madnar in Outer Heaven.

The Outer Heaven Uprising begins.

Operation Intrude N312: The United States brokers FOXHOUND to infiltrate Outer Heaven. Big Boss, the commander of both FOXHOUND and, secretly Outer Heaven, sends his most trusted soldier, Gray Fox, to infiltrate Outer Heaven as a military gesture. Gray Fox is captured by Outer Heaven forces, although not before sending a report of his reconnaissance duties back to FOXHOUND.

Operation Intrude N313: FOXHOUND is forced to send in Solid Snake, a rookie agent, in a follow-up mission to Outer Heaven. Snake rescues Gray Fox, defeats Big Boss, and destroys Metal Gear TX-55. Solid Snake ends up quitting the unit shortly thereafter.

The Outer Heaven Uprising ends. NATO commences an air raid that leaves many war orphans and refugees dead, regardless of their ties to Outer Heaven or not, and the surviving natives are saved by Big Boss.

Roy Campbell, FOXHOUND's second-in-command, is appointed commander-in-chief. The unit's code name system is discarded.

Nastasha Romanenko leaves the DIA to become a freelance analyst, and starts writing for assorted information and U.S. Naval magazines.

Solid Snake begins suffering from nightmares relating to his experiences in the Outer Heaven Uprising.

Courtney Collins is born.

1996
May: Admiral Boorda, the Chief of Naval Operations in charge of the Arsenal Ship Project, dies before the scheduled Phase 2 tests, resulting in the project's cancellation. His death was officially stated to be from suicide. However, shortly afterwards, the void in the Black Budget left from the Arsenal Ship Project being cancelled resulted in ArmsTech taking it up to develop REX, causing various rumors to circulate about how Boorda had truly died.

July 5th: Scientists in Scotland successfully manage to clone the somatic cell of a sheep.

August: Nastasha Romanenko attends the Canberra Commission, the world's first nationally hosted nuclear weapon abolition proposal committee.

Nastasha Romanenko joins NEST (Nuclear Emergency Search Team) as a military and nuclear analyst.

August: The Liberian Civil War ends.

September 10th: The UN adopts the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

LSI (Large Scale Integration) production using resography and SOR begins.

The movie Escape from L.A. is released.

1997
IBM's Supercomputer "Deep Blue" defeats the world champion of chess.

SNF (Short-range Nuclear Force) total abandonment is completed.

An uprising takes place in Central Asia with various international forces, including the CIS, attempting to settle the unrest. They are repeatedly defeated by a band of mercenaries gathered from around the world, during a time known as the Mercenary War. As a result, a democratic military regime, named Zanzibar Land, declares its independence.

Hal Emmerich has an affair with his stepmother, Julie Danziger, which Emma Emmerich briefly witnesses. Huey Emmerich learns of this, and later commits suicide by drowning himself in the family pool, almost taking Emma with him. It is reported as an accident, and Emma develops a severe fear of water. Hal, out of guilt, runs away from home.

July 2nd: The first sub-critical nuclear test is conducted at the Nevada Nuclear Test Facility.

The rapid reproduction of nuclear power plants advances greatly.

1998
2 sets of nuclear tests conducted by India.

Plans are made to abandon chemical weapons worldwide, but were cancelled due to America not wanting to give up its position as the most powerful nation in the world.

The Third Oil Shock occurs.

Super LSI circuits with 100 M bit class memory become available.

Metal Gear D is developed in Zanzibar Land.

May: The Eritrean-Ethiopian War begins.

October: The Third Chadian Civil War began.

December 24th: The Russian multipurpose Transport Helicopter, the KA-60 Kasatka, makes its first flight.

1999
The Euro becomes the currency of over 11 countries of the European Union.

March 24th - June 11th: NATO invade Kosovo while undergoing a war.

American and Russian nuclear disposal sites are raided by Zanzibar Land forces, utilizing Metal Gear D.

Development of Metal Gear G begins in Zanzibar Land, and plans are made for mass-production.

Czech biologist Dr. Kio Marv creates "OILIX", a micro-organism that can produce high quality crude oil.

Zanzibar Land Disturbance: Zanzibar Land succeeds in becoming one of the few remaining nuclear powers in the world, and begins invading neighboring countries at will.

November: Holly White infiltrates Zanzibar Land for the CIA, posing as a journalist.

December: The Khmer Rouge is disbanded.

December 24th: Solid Snake infiltrates Zanzibar Land, defeats Gray Fox and Big Boss, and destroys Metal Gear D. Dr. Kio Marv is killed by Dr. Madnar, who then attempts to kill Snake, before Snake defeats him. Snake vanishes and decides to live in the solitude of Alaska. Gray Fox's body is recovered by FOXHOUND medical chief Dr. Clark for gene therapy experiments. The heavily burned body of Big Boss is retrieved by the Patriots who induce him into a coma using nanomachines.

EVA and Ocelot plot to destroy the Patriots and to revive Big Boss.

The 1999 trials for the National Missile Defense program conclude with a success.

The Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test Facility (DARHT) was completed and established in Los Alamos.

Late 1999/Early 2000: After losing his faith in humanity, Zero commissions the development of four neural AIs, headed by a core AI to inherit the Patriots from him. The four AIs are codenamed GW, TJ, AL and TR, and the core AI named JD. To set up their eventual activation of these AIs, they also developed a program that was submitted to every military center and civilian computers (the latter via an OS program) under the guise of counteracting the supposed effects of the Y2K bug. In actuality, this program was developed to manage and disseminate information that isn't convenient to the Patriots, which would be activated as soon as GW was completed.