Nation Building Through Foreign Intervention: Evidence from Discontinuities in Military Strategies*
利用越战中美军战略的不连续性，估计轰炸和不同平叛策略的因果影响，发现轰炸增强了共产主义叛乱活动、削弱了地方治理，而强调火力的策略比争取民心的策略更易引发叛乱攻击。
This study uses discontinuities in U.S. strategies employed during the Vietnam War to estimate their causal impacts. It identifies the effects of bombing by exploiting rounding thresholds in an algorithm used to target air strikes. Bombing increased the military and political activities of the communist insurgency, weakened local governance, and reduced noncommunist civic engagement. The study also exploits a spatial discontinuity across neighboring military regions that pursued different counterinsurgency strategies. A strategy emphasizing overwhelming firepower plausibly increased insurgent attacks and worsened attitudes toward the U.S. and South Vietnamese government, relative to a more hearts-and-minds-oriented approach.