The Russians certainly learned from it. Are you familiar with the conditions regarding the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? There was a book published fairly recently by someone who was in the Reagan admin at the time (I’d have to do some searching to remember by who). In the book it was detailed that the US government very specifically engineered the situation to make the Soviets feel like they had no choice but to invade. In other words, we specifically wanted them to do it because we knew it would be a disaster. It was all part of Reagan’s strategy to weaken the USSR.
Oops my mistake, I mixed my dates. It was Brzezinski under Carter that engineered the invasion.
” ... we specifically wanted them to do it because we knew it would be a disaster. It was all part of Reagan’s strategy to weaken the USSR.”
One problem with this theory is that the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, more than a year before Reagan’s inauguration. So, maybe it was all part of Carter’s strategy./s
The architect of the program was Zbig Brzezinsky. It took place under Carter’s administration.