&gt;  they appear to still be a functioning state<p>As someone who lives in Vietnam, I&#x27;d disagree with this statement.  It functions at the whim of all of the foreign investment, not of any particular genius on its part.<p>As for who won what, it&#x27;s way more nuanced then you are presenting.<p>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.  There was a reason the US never went north of the 17th parallel and it wasn&#x27;t because the North was beating them back.  Saigon didn&#x27;t fall until two years after the US pulled out.<p>Militarily, the US was maintaining a kill ratio of 134:1 until the pull out.  The NVA rarely won a battle in military terms.  The Tet Offensive was a failure too, from a military perspective anyways.<p>I don&#x27;t personally believe the US should have been here and am anti-war in most circumstances, but growing up in a household with three Vietnam vets (my grandfather served in Saigon for 8 years as a Colonel, my dad, my uncle died in Danang) I&#x27;m fairly studied on the situation.  I don&#x27;t think anyone &quot;won&quot;, especially after living here for five years.  Everyone was a loser imho.