Belgium Defense-Related Industry

Each country in Europe has its own tradition of arms sales, each with its own special pressures and conflicts. The most persistent sellers of all are the Belgians, who have been renowned as weapons manufacturers and traders since the Middle Ages. In the fifteenth century, for example, Charles the Bold of Burgundy forbade the city of Liege—then as today the center of the Belgian armaments industry—from producing weaponry. When this ban was defied, Charles had the city razed and its inhabitants slaughtered. Liege was also the first antinational arms trafficker — that is, its armaments manufacturers sold weapons to known enemies. In 1596, when the duke of Alva invaded the Low Countries, the Dutch and Flemish defenders were armed with weapons manufactured in Liege. So were the duke's Spanish legions.

In the nineteenth century Liege became more important as the headquarters of Fabrique Nationale d'Armes de Guerre (FN), which remains today one of the world's most aggressive manufacturers and exporters of small arms, such as rifles, machine guns, and Browning pistols. More than 90 percent of total Belgian small arms production is exported each year. In 1981, for example, small arms valued at US$270 million were exported. Although this represents only 0.5 percent of total Belgian exports in 1981, given the inexpensive nature of small arms, this amount represents a significant infusion of weaponry into the international market. Although Belgium officially has stringent controls on these sales, FN rifles have found their way to many areas of conflict: they were the first arms to reach Cuba after the Fidel Castro takeover and were used by both sides in the Congo crisis, by the Christians in Lebanon, and by all warring factions in Central America.

FN has also aggressively sought business with major military powers. In 1976 the United States Army awarded a large contract to FN to produce small machine guns for armored vehicles. FN built a small factory in South Carolina to satisfy this agreement. FN has also manufactured jet engines for the European coproduced F-16 fighter aircraft that have been purchased by Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, the United States, and other countries.

Towards the end of the Cold War Belgium continued to be regarded as a major supplier of small arms throughout the world. Although the weapons manufactured in Belgium represented less of an immediate threat than the larger weapons exported by other states, they nevertheless continued to have a significant impact on world affairs, Belgian-made arms have been present on international battlefields since 1945, and in late 1984 there was no indication that such arms. supplies would cease to have an immediate impact on international relations.

By the late 1980s the prevailing mood in the Belgian defense industry, and other areas of the economy as well, was that Belgium was falling behind in emerging technologies and unless immediate action istaken to reverse this trend, independent Belgian industries would cease to exist by the year 2000 and Belgium would become a second class "workshop" nation where nothing is invented and products are merely reproduced from somebody else's design.

According to the Belgian National Armaments Director, "Belgian industry has — for lack of its own natural resources — always based its activities on transformational technology. Since its labor is expensive and since it must remain competitive, the country is forced to concentrate on those sectors offering high additional value, and this in turn means high technology: Belgium's industrial future is assured only if the country develops and renews its technological potential."