A Research On United States' MANPADS Policy

After the Missile attack in Mombasa in 2002,the issue of man-portable air defense missiles(MANPADS) makes its appearance into the USA's policy agenda.In recent years,it has been an important aspect of USA's strategy for arms non-proliferation. To address the terrorist threat on civil aircraft from the proliferation of MANPADS, USA has paid a great deal of effort and made some progress.As the leading state to develop MANPADS,USA also plays an important role in the process of the proliferation of MANPADS.This thesis introduces the progress made by the US-led international community to prevent and control the proliferation of MANPADS from the angles of the domestic division,bilateral activities and multilateral initiatives.From the aspects of strengthening export control,the destruction of surplus or obsolete weapons,the improvement of the inventory safety management and recycling and collection of the illegal scattered weapons in several areas,this thesis demonstrates the American's non-proliferation policies and diplomatic actions.The author holds that American's non-proliferation policies have some limitations in the above aspects.And the key to prevent the proliferation of MANPADS is to eliminate the root of terrorism.In addition,USA can not do with the non-proliferation apart from the cooperation of other major powers such as China, Russia,which is bound to dominate the direction of development.The attempt of strengthening export control of MANPADS can prevent small and medium-sized countries from acquiring these weapons.However,to solve the problem of the proliferation of MANPADS,it must begin with the perspective of "human security" and settle the root behind proliferation.