German unity, conventional disarmament, confidence-building defense, and a new European order of peace and security

This paper discusses a solar development initiative, or a demilitarized SDI, sponsored jointly by the CSCE countries as a conversion project which could contributed to conflict avoidance. If hydrogen can be obtained in solar energy plants in a cost-effective way, if desalination can be achieved on a massive scale, the social vision of a demilitarized SDI may be more realistic: to use solar energy for desalination of water and their transport to regions, e.g., in the Sahel where there is a shortage. The gas pipeline deal between the USSR and several West European countries could be a model for such a cooperative high technology conversion project that serves a basic human need; to supply water cheaply to permit farming and to offer survival for the people in the Sahel and in other parts of the world where there is a surplus of sun but a shortage of water. This vision will contribute to a dismantling of cold war institutions that impede the realization of a new European peace order