The USSR obviously got a lot of combat experience during WWII. But between WWII and the invasion of Afghanistan, it seems like they had very mild opportunities to train in battle. The invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia weren’t real battles, and I don’t recall the Soviet-China war being that significant.
Did this lack of experience contribute to their failed invasion of Afghanistan?
On the other side, the US had during the Korean and Vietnam wars many soldiers killed, but the collective combat experience gained certainly must have helped the overall skills of the individual soldiers and the armed forces as a whole. While that might not have helped in the event of a nuclear conflict, were the Soviets concerned at all about this? Did need for real life experience play into the decisions of either the Soviets or the Americans during the Cold War?