A senior military expert has claimed that Belgium is in a "vulnerable and weak" military position, and has urged the country's leaders to redouble their efforts to protect Belgium's critical infrastructure and improve its security.
In a wide-ranging recent interview with De Morgen, Professor Alexander Mattelaer — a Senior Research Fellow at the Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations and Vice Dean for Research at the VUB Brussels School of Governance — placed particular emphasis on the dangers potentially facing Belgium if Russia's war in Ukraine were to escalate.
"If it suddenly comes to a cross-border escalation, we are in a vulnerable and weak position because we have failed to be sufficiently far-sighted in previous years," Mattelaer said. In particular, he noted that protecting Belgium's "strategic ports" at Zeebrugge and Antwerp will "require additional investments" by the Federal Government.
"Our dependence on energy supplies in the North Sea, both gas and wind energy, increased due to the phasing out of Russian gas," Mattelaer explained. "Our vulnerabilities are real. The protection of our position as a military-logistical support point and our critical infrastructure require additional investments."
The Para-Commando Regiment of the Belgian Army in Marche-Les-Dames, Tuesday 18 October 2022. Credit: Belga / Bruno Fahy
During the interview, Mattelaer also denounced NATO countries' refusal to substantially increase military aid to Ukraine despite the country's well-known difficulties in sourcing sufficient quantities of ammunition.
"Western support is only increasing marginally," he said. "Ukraine is still at risk of ammunition and weapons shortages. The critical vulnerability now is anti-aircraft artillery. If gaps are created there, it can have a huge impact on the spring offensive. The Russian Air Force, hitherto little used, could then suddenly make a much larger entry, with all the ensuing consequences."
He added: "The struggle in Ukraine is now the outer shield of Western defence."
Mattelaer's comments follow similar remarks made on Saturday by Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrij Melnyk, who claimed that "Ukraine needs 10 times more" military support if the country is to win the war by the end of this year.
Melnyk's comments also follow the recent publication of classified Pentagon documents, some of which appeared to show that Ukraine's air defences are at serious risk of running out of ammunition within the next few weeks unless NATO allies immediately step up arms shipments to Kyiv.
The documents detailing Ukraine's problems with ammunition echo previous explicit warnings by NATO's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, as well as Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna.
