“stomp” is a bit exaggerated... Democracies are usually more economically efficient, whinch in the long run means more productive power for tech progress or weapons/munitions manufacture. But the catch is “the long run” there is some history of tribal/ dictatorial states distabalizing democracies and “winning” if they do it quickly and ferociously enough. Or even just ferociously.

A very good source of info about a lot of the powers and incentives in something like this is the “rules for rules” youtube video from cgp grey https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs