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.