any war could account for that. the war in EFNY was basically a world war, after all.
edit, further thoughts : in fact, a lot of the topics of Snake being ordered in on suicide missions for made-up propaganda and failed misinformation etc could directly relate to current WMD topics and the like. the increasing police state etc is also relevant.
this is, of course, based on back info from the novel. regarding the film, and any protential reimagibootmake it's entirely superfluous : Snake is a renegade badass, a soldier gone merc/survivalist/whatever ~ end of story. Not knowing anything of his past took nothing whatsoever away from the film when i first saw it. knowing it now from the novels, it still takes nothing away from the film in that it's barely mentioned at all. Much the same as the bank job, we don't NEED to see it, Hauk's briefing tells all we need to know before the plot takes off.
