In the middle of Washington, D.C., sits a small college that you probably have never heard of but exerts a great influence on how U.S. national security strategy is made.

The National War College does not have a college basketball team; there is no alma mater played at commencement; there are no written tests and the average age of the students is probably 40. And while it has never produced a Heisman Trophy winner, former Secretary of State Colin Powell; Senator John McCain (when he was a Navy officer); General Wesley Clark, who led NATO military operations against Serbia in 1999; General Eric Shinseki, former Chief of Staff of the Army and currently Secretary for Veterans' Affairs; General Mike Moseley, former Chief of Staff for the Air Force and Marine Generals; Tony Zinni, a Marine and former Central Command Commander; and Peter Pace, a Marine and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, attended the school.

Perhaps more importantly for the country's future is that Retired Marine General James Jones, the national security advisor to President Obama, is also a graduate. That's key because I imagine Jones can walk into the Oval Office any time he needs to.

About 200 U.S. students attend the ten-month school every year, graduating with a Master's Degree in National Security Strategy. They are carefully selected from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Department of State, CIA, FBI, Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security and other governmental agencies, a good mix of civilians and military officers, the best of the best. Twenty-some foreign students also attend; many of them will later become leaders in their own countries. Because of their experience at the school, most become life-long friends of the United States.

For ten months, the students study and debate security strategy and the most relevant issues of the day. They read many of the classical strategic thinkers: Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, Machiavelli, Mao Zedong, Liddell Hart, T.E. Lawrence and sometimes even Karl Marx, depending on what the course director selects. As a course director, I had the students reading about 150 pages a night.

Students also learn how foreign policy is crafted. They have a separate course on how the U.S. Government works, everything from how the court systems operate to how money is authorized and appropriated in Congress. They also study regions of the world and make a two-week trip toward the end of the course; I visited Pakistan and India as a student and traveled to Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Israel and Jordan as a teacher.

One of the great aspects of the school is its proximity to national leaders; frequently senators, Supreme Court justices and ambassadors come over and talk with the students. For two days right after 9/11 in 2001 we had no classes, as all of Washington was bracing for a follow-on terrorist attack. Finally, that Friday, the students returned to class, and as fortune would have it, we had former Director of the CIA, James Woolsey scheduled to speak. He walked up to the lectern, threw his notes to the floor and said in a voice so loud a microphone was unnecessary: "I had planned to discuss a history of intelligence operations today, but you all probably want to know who did this." And for the next hour he went into fascinating detail on Al-Qaeda; it likely included classified information, but he didn't give a hoot. You could have heard a pin drop.

The National War College provides graduates with a common frame for analyzing complex national security issues and challenges. In a world where complex problems are becoming the norm, it is crucial that key decision makers throughout the government have already thought about these issues and potential solutions, exactly what the National War College provides its graduates.

Retired Col. French MacLean lives in Decatur.