[maoistinquisitr]

Japan and Germany fought WWII because they wanted to secure oil supplies. The USSR and USA defeated them because they had massive amounts of oil at their disposal. The USA was #1 producer at the time. Also, both the Germans and Japanese failed to secure oil supplies and refineries quickly enough and quickly ran out of liquid fuels. WWII can almost be boiled down to this factor alone. If Germany and Japan had secured supplies of liquid fuels they would not have been defeated. Democracy and capitalism has nothing to do with it.

[WalterBright]

Even in the early stages of the Pacific war, the Japanese soldier was very lightly equipped and the Japanese could not replace their losses, while the US produced a tsunami of equipment and supplies starting from near zero at the outset.

You'll see the impact of free markets even in the Civil War. The Southern slave economy could not produce what was needed - they couldn't even produce shoes for their soldiers. The free Northern economy buried them with well equipped well fed soldiers. (The North and South were both democracies. Slave/free economies made the difference.)

[maoistinquisitr]

Both German and Russian war production increased throughout the war under command economies and massive bombing. They key factor was fuel.