Just about every military force has their own Military Martial Art.
The Marines have the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program.
The Red Army had Sambo.
And Snake… has CQC.
It stands for Close Quarters Combat, and no - it’s not just a cute name that Kojima
made up.
It’s a fully realized branching fighting style that Snake can use to disarm and disable
7 dudes in 20 seconds.
The movements are subtle, so let’s slow things down, and piece together the influences
and philosophies of Snake’s own Military Martial Art.
We’re going to have a few players here, so let’s give em names.
We’ll call this guy Freddie.
Snake restrains Freddie with his right arm across Freddie’s carotid artery, while his
left arm grips Freddie’s wrist behind his back.
This basic hold is the starting point of lots of CQC maneuvers.
In gameplay, Snake usually applies a hold with his left arm to keep his dominant hand
free to handle weapons, but the idea here is the same.
Snake -could- choose to choke his opponent out with the kata ha jime.
And when I say choke, I don’t mean stopping his breathing.
The kata ha jime restricts blood flow to and from the brain until the victim passes out.
He could also slam them down with an osoto otoshi, a move where Snake sweeps the opponent’s
leg while driving them back-first onto the ground.
Both of these techniques are borrowed from Judo, a Japanese martial art that translates
to “gentle way.”
See, Military Martial arts don’t just make up moves — they pick and choose the most
effective techniques from existing martial arts, and weave them into a single program.
Judo is about subduing opponents with throws and holds, rather than potentially deadly
strikes.
The hold Snake has on Freddie here isn’t about hurting him, it’s about controlling
him.
Enter Cappy, Saitama, and Scarfy.
When shit pops off, he grabs Saitama’s pistol in one hand, and his arm with the other.
He uses Saitama’s locked elbow as a fulcrum to spin him face-first into Scarfy.
This technique looks like a modified version of gokyo - one of the fundamental techniques
of aikido.
Aikido is another Japanese martial art that emphasizes redirecting an attacker’s momentum
into throws and joint locks - all while protecting your enemy from serious injury.
Snake even applies a bit of aikido to this disarm, redirecting Scarfy’s rifle in an
arc that throws him off balance.
This allows Snake to strip it away before transitioning into some good old bayonet fighting
(sans bayonet).
Soldiers have been using long guns as melee weapons since at least the 1600s, and while
close-range combat isn’t as common as it was back then, bayonet fighting is still a
part of military training.
Snake knocks Scarfy back with a straight thrust, then turns to meet Cappy with a disrupt - a
defensive maneuver meant to knock the attacker’s weapon away and make room for a counter-attack.
And here’s where Snake does something really cool - he throws a horizontal buttstroke,
while simultaneously stepping inside his opponent’s stance to execute a judo-esque trip.
From there, he just uses these Basics of CQC to clear the room.
Redirect
Buttstroke trip
Disrupt
Kick
Choke
Disrupt
And Joint lock
CQC is fast, effective, and most of all, non-lethal.
Even when Snake pulls his knife, he uses it to brace his opponent rather than to slash
or stab.
CQC’s emphasis on non-lethal attacks makes sense: enemies are more use to him alive than
dead.
They can be human shields, sources of information, and in Peace Walker and MGS V, they can be
recruited to his army.
Obviously, you don’t have to choose the non-lethal path, but in cutscenes, snake almost
always does.
At its core, CQC is about control.
Every combat scenario begins with dangerous variables.
Multiple attackers with multiple weapons.
Snake uses his toolset to systematically remove those variables, until he’s in control.
With CQC, nothing's left up to fate.