You're absolutely right Flying_Tuur,
SN must focus on becomming a higly reputated carrier for Europe and Africa only! Apart from the basic "Brussels aspect" so to say, they have to become a synonym for flights to Central Africa once again, just as TAP/Iberia would be a natural choice if you wanted to go to South America.
SN needs a strong European network because it's important for Belgium to have good medium haul connections and besides, with EU, NATO and more HQs then any other city in Europe I don't see why there wouldn't be room for a medium sized Brussels based airline focussing mainly on European business pax.
Africa because SN was traditionally one of the 2 strong players on this continent. Beside, now that Air Afrique is out of business, it would be a pitty to let this very profitable niche market over to Air France. This lucrative intercontinental branche would also give SN the change to strenghten its European network through feeder flights and would make the company less dependant from the generally low-yield European market. Note that these feeder flights would not have to be offered for virtually free as Sn had to do in the past, since the onward flights to Africa have a much higher yield then onward flights to the USA or Asia for instance.
With this route structure SN has everything it takes to get 2 good intercontinental partners in the USA and Asia, which could be very interested in SN's European network + its African market. American airlines and any Asian partner with good connections in the Pacific region would make perfect alliance parnters.
I think the management at SN is on the right track now that the Swiss and their silly ideas about a strong global network are gone.. .There's nothing wrong with being a nice medium sized intercontinental flag carrier like TAP, CSA, Icelandair etc... it might even be easier to get stable and profitable results that way!