&gt; The US wasn&#x27;t really in Vietnam to win anything, but there to stop the North from capturing the South, which it did quite easily until the money dried up.<p>[...]<p>&gt; Militarily, the US was maintaining a kill ratio of 134:1 until the pull out.<p>But that&#x27;s just not how wars work. No politician goes to war to get a good kill ratio. It&#x27;s a question of strategic objectives. AFAIK, the dominant theory on the US side was that once the incompetently-led South Vietnam fell to the North, the &quot;domino effect&quot; would turn the rest of Southeast Asia into a bastion of godless communists. The US lost due in a large part to political factors, but anyone thinking that military factors are the only important thing in war shouldn&#x27;t really be allowed to take any strategic decision. There is just no question that North Vietnam, on the other hand, achieved its own strategic objectives and won.