Play Axis and Allies.
You will find that the only viable strategy for the Axis is to use teamwork. Japan must invade Russia and knock it out; without land, Japan simply can't build enough, but toward the end of a game where the Axis wins, Japan is usually outbuilding Germany. (When the Allies are winning, Russia usually outbuilds GB and USA, but we know that in RL, the Russians were held up almost entirely by US arms shipping through Archangel, not by their own industrial ability, nor that in the lands they captured.)
In RL, Japan and Germany basically went their own seperate ways and did not cooperate at all. It is the Allied teamwork that allowed them to stop the enemy advance, and then the untouched American industrial might that ground them into the dirt.
The Japanese and the Russians had been at odds for a long time. Most everyone has heard of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, in which Japan wiped out Russia's Pacific and Baltic fleets. (The war ALMOST started in the Med!) Their bad blood had been around for long before then, and lasted long after.
In the late 1930's, Japan had a couple short wars in China/Manchuria/Mongolia and that area. Russia handily defeated them, and they had no further desire to repeat the earlier disasters. Stalin still had good troops in the Far East, waiting for the Japanese to make a move, and so they looked for easier targets.
The only thing that stood in their way of taking over the Pacific was the USA. They were afraid we'd go to war with them over the war they were having with China at the time. Our economic sanctions forced them to find alternate resources, since the ones they were getting in Manchuria weren't doing the job. The American bases they attacked in Dec 1941 were their stumbling blocks, so they took them out.
The Japanese rulers were convinced that America was weak, and that we would capitulate easily. At the time, we were pretty weak, but obviously, we didn't just roll over. Their attack was somewhat inevitable, due to the way they thought at the time.
Now the big question is this: What if Hitler hadn't gone and declared war against us? Germany and Japan weren't acting in concert. They had no common interests, except to see Russia disappear and to control their area of the world. Hitler didn't really have to declare war. Japan had declared war on the US without consulting him, and most treaties are worded such that you don't have to join in an aggressive war if you don't want to. (That's why Italy did not join WW1 on the side of the Central Powers.) I don't know about the Axis treaty, but it was foolhardy for Hitler to DoW the USA.
Had he not, the USA would've pounded Japan thoroughly. The public would have quickly forgotten anything Hitler was doing to their neutral convoys in the Atlantic until Japan was a smoking husk, and that would have taken some time, thanks to the fanatacism of the Japanese. By that time, Moscow would have fallen, and effective Russian resistance with it, Britain would've been forced to the bargaining table, and Germany would've ruled most of Europe.
After that, I have little doubt eventually Hitler would have attacked the USA at some point.
The only point of real contention is the nuclear bomb. Once Germany had that, and a way to deliver it, there would be no stopping them. If America can develop and deploy it first, they might win, but once Germany has it, a lot of the Northern Hemisphere is going to glow at night. Even without an actual bomb, radioactive dust is a possible weapon.
Could America have survived all this? Would we be dead, speaking German, or would Germany be one giant parking lot, all because we didn't stop Hitler in time?
