I'm aware that it's not linear, thanks, but it doesn't seem odd to you that we'd be facing off against two armies and need to outspend them each 16 times over based on our doctrine?

It may not be linear, but it shouldn't require spending more than quadruple of the groups you're hoping to defeat. Anything more starts to look a lot like waste, or that it really wasn't about that doctrine in the first place.

My question to you is: what rule says that more than quadruple is waste or shouldn't be required to defeat an opponent?

What arbitrary limit is in place that defines that?

I don't know if you play real time strategy games, but think about our national strategy and apply it to a game like say, Starcraft 2.

If this were a 2 vs. 1 match, and you wanted to successfully beat both enemies using our national security strategy (we'll see win-hold-win), you wouldn't just spend 2x as much as your enemy. You'd have to crush the first opponent while at least matching the second opponent at the same time and then move on to crush the second opponent with the forces that remain/win the first one.

Most everyone in those games would agree that it's hard to crush another player with even skills without having a huge numerical or tech advantage - let's say relatively speaking, twice as much relative power.

Now, in games, spending is balanced - in the real world, however, that isn't the case, and the US based upon the lack of market forces, differences in cost of living, etc. which can mean spending 2 to 3x more for similar equipment, like the F-22 versus the PAK-FA.

Using that analogy, you can see how if in a 2v1 match, the lone player would have to spend at least 3x more than one of the rival players to crush him, and then at least 2x more at a minimum hold the other player - and hey would you look at that, the US budget keeps us at similar proportions to a worst-case hypothetical war against a China and Russia or China + one other