Correction. It has become fashionable to claim that GDP doesn't matter, mostly from the people who are greatly losing the GDP race and whose policies will be bad for GDP and they know it. I mean, the fox at least has excuse for finding the grapes sour because they are toxic to vulpines.

They also remain willfully ignorant about the context of GDP - namely that it was derived as a proxy for military productive and research capacity. It specifically isn't just raw industrial capacity because the intellectual research and development work is also very relevant in military match-ups.