[syriacus]

We don't hear much about another Democratic mistake...the Korean War.

In 1945, under Truman, the US freed S. Korea.
In 1948-49, under Truman, the US military budget was cut to the bone and troops were withdrawn from an unstable and militarily weak S. Korea.
In 1950, N. Korea invaded S. Korea
In 1950, Truman sent troops back to S. Korea to rewin it's freedom.

30,000 Americans died in Korea in the 30 months remaining of Truman's presidency. (7/1950 - 1/1953)

During the Korean War, under Truman, the military draft was ramped up and the strictest wartime censorship in memory was put in place.

Odds are, there would not have been a Korean War if our troops had remained in Korea for a longer time, as they did in Japan and Germany

[Just mythoughts]

Ah but see Stalin had agreed to leave Korea at the end of WWII, but then conspired secretly with the Chinese Communists to send in their troops. See this was the first UN run war and old Stalin decided he would boycott the UN and take all of Korea.

[Verginius Rufus]

If the Japanese war had ended before Stalin declared war on Japan, then the Soviets wouldn't have gotten half of Korea. That seems to have been a spur-of-the-moment mistake, to split Korea in two when the Japanese surrendered. Without that, the Korean War wouldn't have happened.

The only winners were the Japanese--the Korean War has been characterized as a Marshall Plan for Japan (since US spending during the war poured so much money into Japan).

[edsheppa]

In 1948-49, under Truman, the US military budget was cut to the bone and troops were withdrawn from an unstable and militarily weak S. Korea.

But Republicans controlled both houses in the 80th Congress (1947-49) which includes one of your mentioned years so you can't blame Truman entirely.

	Republicans	Democrats
House	246	188
Senate	51	45

Control reverted to Democrats in the next election.

It's interesting that the Republicans also controlled Congress from '94 and helped Clinton spend the "peace dividend" and slash our military.