Yeah but they're still independent.

> U.S. military power since WW2 can basically be summed up by "We can't win, but we can still kill you." If you end up dead, your side may win, but that's cold comfort (literally) for you.

Some of them, yes. But even for those who do die: haven't you heard "give me liberty or give me death"? Many people do feel this way.

> Also, the huge irony of the Vietnam war is that by 1989, 15 years after the North Vietnamese "won", Vietnam was one of the most intensely capitalist countries on Earth.

Yet where is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie? Why do Vietnamese billionaires not run the government like they do that of America, and why does their government not have to kowtow to American business interests like Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea do? Because despite opening up their economy, their political system is far from a liberal democracy. You're making a false equivalence to try and pretend that the Vietnamese war was a no-op, that they should have just rolled over and accepted defeat like you're suggesting all the peoples of the world do.