European countries

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting the Black and Aegean Seas.

Described below are some example countries falling even partially under any of the various common definitions of Europe, geographical or political.

Finland
Finland (Sumoi in Finnish), officially known as the Republic of Finland, is a Scandinavian country in northern Europe, bordering Sweden to the west, Norway to the north, Russia to the east, and Estonia to the south across from the Gulf of Finland. They are well known for their saunas.

Several soldiers of Finnish nationality joined the Militaires Sans Frontières in 1974, which acted as part of the reason why a sauna area was built on Mother Base, as a means to boost morale among the Finnish personnel.

France


France, officially the French Republic (French: République française), and often referred to in French as l’Hexagone ("The Hexagon"), is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe, with various territories on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Its capital is Paris, derived from Elysium, the Greek paradise of the afterlife. It is also known as the world capital of art and culture, and its primary language is French. The name France is derived from the Latin word "Francia" which translated to "Country of the Franks." The national anthem for France, La Marseillaise, was derived from the French Revolution. It was also one of the "Big Five" (the five countries allowed to possess Nuclear Weapons) involved in the Non Proliferation Treaty. Otacon, when relaying information relating to the Trojan War during the 2007 Tanker Incident, once mistook "Paris," the prince of Troy, for the capital city of France. People of French heritage are often reputed to be skilled chefs.

France is the birthplace of the mercenary Revolver Ocelot (Normandy), ornithologist Cécile Cosima Caminades, and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, while both CIA agent Holly White and Desperado member Mistral were each born to a French parent. The PMC Pieuvre Armement and the terrorist group Les Enfants Terribles were also based in France.

France during its history also had an immense rivalry with Great Britain, which was at the time one of the most powerful nations in the known world. Because of this rivalry, France also had some involvement in America's fight for independence against the British during the Revolutionary War. Shortly after the war, the French people underwent a revolution of their own and abolishing the absolute monarchy. Afterwards, the young republic fell under the Reign of Terror, a period of violence incited by conflict between rival political factions, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of the revolution," until Napoleon Bonaparte took power. Following Napoleon's defeat in the Napoleonic Wars France went through several further regime changes, ultimately becoming a republic again. The French Foreign Legion, a military service wing of the French Army, was established in 1831, unique because it was exclusively created for foreign nationals willing to serve in the French Armed Forces.

France acted as one of the allied powers of Europe in World War I. In World War II, it was occupied by Nazi Germany. Several French scientists also defected to America to avoid it, which also led to them partaking in the Manhattan Project. The tide eventually turned during the Battle of Normandy, where the Allied Forces stormed the beaches, and eventually drove out the Germans occupying the area. The Boss also gave birth to Revolver Ocelot while she was storming Normandy to take out V2 missile launch sites. France was also the country that developed the HALO jump, in large part because it became a popular sport due to its usage after World War II. It also became a member of NATO by the Cold War, alongside West Germany.

In 1954, France fought a war against one of its colonies that wanted independence, Algeria, of which the Umbrellas of Cherbourg was based on. By the 1960s, as a result of the French scientists defecting to America during World War II, France became the fourth nuclear power with their nuclear test "Gerboise Bleue." As a consequence, it also held the Algerian War in check. In May 1968, a large general strike occurred that nearly brought down Charles de Gaulle's presidency, in the midst of a wider youth movement to break away from traditional values with roots at Straussbourg University two years prior, comparable to the hippie movement in the United States. In 1972, the wine industry in France suffered, with some refusing to drink wine made in that year because of it.

The French city of Lyon was the site of the world's first successful hand transplant in 1998, and double hand transplant in 2000. Following the Shadow Moses Incident in 2005, Revolver Ocelot had his lower arm replaced with that of Liquid Snake in Lyon, but an apparent personality imbalance he suffered afterwards caused him to remark that he "never trust(s) a Frenchman." The same year, France also experienced riots.

Georgia
Georgia (Georgian: საქართველო Sakartvelo) is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia, located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe. Georgia is a unitary, semi-presidential republic, with the government elected through a representative democracy. The capital of Georgia is Tbilisi.

Georgia is a former Soviet satellite state. It has often been at odds with Russia, due to the disputed territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The Baku-Tbilisi- Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline ran through the country, although they didn't particularly mind, as it gave them a degree of monetary payment as well as power. The results of the Ossentia civil war also was part of the reason, as they wanted to build up their power base in the region by supporting neighboring countries in case they couldn't rely on the West to solve their problems. In 2017, the country was hit with a bombing that was suspected to have originated from the PMC Desperado, as well as Abkhazian extremist Andrey Dolzaev. Although Georgia neither directly participated in nor officially endorsed the Abkhazian Coup a year later, they nonetheless felt that, should Dolzaev succeed in his goal, they might have a chance at a pro-Georgian government established in Sukhumi as a proxy, especially if the coastal refinery was overtaken from the Russians.

Germany


Germany (German: Deutschland), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland), is a federal parliamentary republic in western-central Europe. It possessed the largest economy in Europe and was the founder of various paramilitary groups such as the GSG-9 antiterrorism group, of which the mercenary Fire Trooper was a member, as well as SEK. It is the birthplace of Dead Cell strategist and former Wehrmacht soldier Old Boy, the psychic Ursula, and cyberneticist Wilhelm Voigt, a.k.a. Doktor, the latter originating in Communist-occupied East Germany.

Germany was involved in World War I as one of the Central Powers. After the war, Germany received the lion's share of the blame, being put under a lot of debt. As a result, by the time of the Great Depression, Germany's economy collapsed. It also came to be known as the Weimar Republic, and had a lot of its territory shrink down, until the rise of Nazism. Germany then began invading its neighbors, leading to World War II. The Philosophers, as part of a pact for defeating Germany and its allies, accumulated a hundred billion dollars for the war effort by pooling their resources. Following Germany's defeat, both the American and Russian factions of the Philosophers utilized portions of the money to gain its most intelligent scientists. The Soviet Union occupied the eastern portion of Germany, while the Allied Powers occupied the West, resulting in the country's partition.

During the 1960s, The Boss's orchestrated sabotages within the Soviet Union via an anti-Moscow faction of the Philosophers, attending clandestine meetings in Berlin. In addition, the Berlin Wall was created during the Cold War, splitting East from West, and forcing various defectors to cross over it, including Nikolai Stepanovich Sokolov. The Berlin Wall collapsed during the 1990s, reunifying Germany and signifying the end of Communism in Europe. Consequentially, the reunification also led to some researchers being left without a job, as well as several weapons contracts being cancelled.

Germans were also reputed to have a humorless personality.

Hungary
Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It was located near the Carpathian Basin and was bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest, and Austria to the west.

The man known as Skull Face originally hailed from Hungary.

Montenegro
Montenegro (Montenegrin: Crna Gora, meaning "Black Mountain") is a country in Southeastern Europe, located to the west of Croatia, to the northwest of both Bosnia and Herzegovina, to the northeast of Serbia, to the east of Kosovo, and to the south-east of Albania, as well as being near the coast to the Adriatic Sea. In the 10th century, it was composed of three Slavic principalities: Duklja to the southernmost half, Travulia to the west, and Rascia to the north. Eventually, Duklja gained independence from a revolt. Its primary language is Montenegrin.

In the mid-to-late 2010s, the Private Military and Security Company Maverick Security Consulting, Inc. did a brief mission in Montenegro that Raiden, whom at the time had just recently joined the PMSC, was involved in. The mission entailed retrieving three Albanian Mafiosos that fled Italy. However, Raiden apparently had some initial difficulty carrying out the mission despite having already covered the briefing materials prior to commencing the mission, due to the mafiosos undergoing cybernetic treatment. Kevin Washington, a fellow Maverick member, briefly referenced this mission, and Raiden's apparent difficulty in carrying it out, when citing that Raiden should listen to his quick briefing on a mission to Abkhazia, regardless of whether he had already covered the materials beforehand, four years later.

Romania
Romania (Romanian: România, formerly spelled Roumania and Rumania) is a country in the intersection of Eastern Europe and Central Europe. It is the ninth largest country of the European Union in terms of area, and the seventh largest population.

Although references to Romania as a location existed as early as the 1500s, it wasn't until the late 1800s that Romania formally became a nation with the union between Moldavia and Wallachia. Transylvania is a region in the center of the country. It became infamous for one of its rulers in the 1400s, Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, better known as Vlad the Impaler, who acted as the inspiration of the character of Count Dracula.

It eventually fell to Socialism shortly after World War II, and acted as one of the Soviet Union's satellite states during the Cold War until the Communist Bloc's collapse in 1991. At an unknown point, a terrorist attack occurred that blew up a church in Romania, whose victims included a family killed and its sole survivor impaled to a cross from the resulting damage and narrowly surviving.

Switzerland
Switzerland, officially known as the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, and Bern as the head of state. It is widely known as a massive financial center in Europe.

In the aftermath of World War II, Switzerland acted as one of at least three economic strongholds owned by the Philosophers that contained portions of the Philosophers' Legacy, when Boris Volgin took control of it for himself at the war's conclusion.

In 2018, the Nevada-based PMC Maverick Security Consulting, Inc. was originally supposed to do a security detail for Switzerland after their mission in Africa was completed. However, because of the disastrous failure in Africa due to Desperado's interference, the mission request was temporarily frozen by the time of the subsequent Abkhazian Coup.

Ukraine
Ukraine (Ukrainian: Україна, "Ukrayina") is a country in Eastern Europe, bordering the Russian Federation to the east and northeast, Belarus to the northwest, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west, Romania and Moldova to the southwest, and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south and southeast, respectively. It is the second largest country on the European continent, with only Russia being larger. It is the birthplace of anti-nukes activist and former NEST member Nastasha Romanenko, and the Soviet-era manufacturing company: the L.I. Wisniowiecki Machine Works Design Bureau was stationed in this country, specifically at Dnipropetrovsk. The Grad UG was also developed here.

During the 1920s, Ukraine was taken over by the newly-formed Soviet Union, and likewise fell victim to a mass starvation attempt by the Soviets by the 1930s. During this time, it was called the Ukrainian SSR, or Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. In April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl disaster occurred, which was a catastrophic meltdown from a nuclear production facility that resulted in a large part of the city of Chernobyl being irradiated for a long time. It eventually renounced communism when the Soviet Union, and by extension the entire Eastern Bloc of Europe, fell in the 1990s.

United Kingdom


The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, more commonly known and referred as the United Kingdom, the UK, and Great Britain, is a sovereign state comprising England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and is the founder of various military groups such as the Special Air Service and the Secret Intelligence Service. It was the birthplace of David Oh, a.k.a. Zero, and AI researcher Strangelove, as well as the country in which Liquid Snake was raised following his birth. The CIA agent Holly White and Hal Emmerich also had some British ancestry. Praying Mantis, one of the world's largest PMCs by 2014, was also based in Britain.

In 1776, Great Britain fought against its thirteen colonies in North America, which sought independence after being taxed without representation. Britain later fought the United States of America in the War of 1812, which it ultimately lost, although not before burning down portions of the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C. In the first half of the 20th Century, Britain served alongside America as a member of the Allied Forces during the two World Wars. In World War II, it was faced with several bombing runs by Nazi Germany. During the war, the newly formed SAS carried out a dummy run in Heliopolis and conducted nighttime raids during the North African campaign. In addition, a researcher named Alan Turing decoded the Enigma, allowing Britain to eventually use their communications against Nazi Germany, which contributed greatly to the Allies' victory in the war.

Britain became a member of NATO, and one of the Western powers in competition with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It also became one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and was the third country to develop a nuclear weapons arsenal (with its first atomic bomb test in 1952). Despite his contributions in World War II, Alan Turing was later arrested under the charge of practicing homosexuality. The James Bond novels were first published in Britain, beginning in 1953, with Major Zero becoming a fan of the later film series that they would inspire. During the 1960s, Britain began to grant its remaining colonies independence, including Zimbabwe (then known as Rhodesia). In the 1980s, Britain fought against Argentina over the disputed territory of the Falkland Islands, in the Falklands War. The British later participated in the First and Second Gulf Wars in the 1990s and 2000s, respectively.

Behind the scenes
In Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, Germany, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium were mentioned as trading partners with the African nation of Gindra. France in particular acted as both the exporter (of food) and importer (of diamonds) for Gindra as well as the original colonizer of Gindra. Germany likewise acted as a supplier of food for Gindra, and Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium acted as the recipients of Gindran diamonds. In the same game, the character Sophie N'dram had a French father. France was also an important nation in the same game due to the main location, Gindra, being a former French colony.

Paris, France and London, United Kingdom were the final destinations for the Peace Walker World Tour 2010 event.

Due to Kevin Washington's line about Montenegro in the demo for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, depicting the initial part of the Abkhazia mission, some press sources as well as the title of the song that plays in the prologue have erroneously claimed that the location in the prologue for the game was Montenegro, rather than the unnamed country in Africa.

While doing a tour of France, Kojima, when showing pictures of his trip there, mentioned visiting Normandy as a "scouting location" as well as having the desire to use it as one for ten years, implying that he may intend to use the location for one of his next games.