And Eisenhower compounded that weakness with his defense policies. Why did anyone ever call him a great president? Because of a farewell speech about a social ill he hadn't lifted a finger to stop?
Ike is consistently ranked in the top ten of US presidents, and with good reason.
He wasn't responsible for Korea, but ended it; and more to the point, managed to keep the US clean out of any war at the height of the Cold War. (He worked very hard to keep the US out of Indochina, and advised Kennedy and Johnson to do likewise, with little success.) His foreign policy looks generally quite adroit in hindsight.
I think Ike was as aware as anyone about the limitations of U.S. ability to fight a large conventional war, and his decision to emphasize instead a (more affordable) strategic nuclear buildup worked out; by the time he left office, there surely *was* a missile gap, but it was entirely on the side of the United States; the U.S. could have destroyed the USSR as a nation state by the early 50's, and even by 1961 Soviet ability to strike back was severely limited. Which surely had something to do with the relatively restrained Soviet posture in that period.
For a guy who seemed to be playing golf every day, Eisenhower looks pretty good compared to virtually any of his successors, and plenty of his predecessors.