Economic Growth and Defence Spending: An Efficiency Analysis of Romania’s Conscription Suspension

National defense is one of the key sectors responsible for maintaining national security, being considered at the same time an element of great importance and strict necessity of the public sector. The performance of defense functions and missions are closely linked to the military capabilities of this sector, which in turn depend on the budget for defense spending. This paper deals with some theoretical issues in the economic field of defense, regarding the size of defense spending in GDP and their social effects. It is also trying to carry out an analysis on the efficiency versus inefficiency in the use of defense resources, to finance the two types of recruitment systems, namely: by conscription or voluntary will. In order to be able to achieve the above, graphical analysis methods and calculation dermination method were used. The efficiency of spending public funds depends on both objective factors such as: distribution of a certain share of GDP to a certain area; attracting internal and external funding, as well as subjective factors, like: allocating resources to certain categories of expenses; allocating resources to certain defense programs; effective management of these resources by the competent structures. Therefore, for a program to be considered effective, it must meet the requirements of the collective needs of society, be rationally implemented and be sustainable.