At 6:28 a.m. a massive explosion ripped through a historic block of North Second Avenue in downtown Nashville. Among the first questions asked were who did it, why did they do it, and was it terrorism. That last question has become a quintessential element of mass violence in America. We may feel some relief when when a heinous act is not called terrorism, sadly, not that its horrific nature is lessened by its label but the implication that it's not part of a wider campaign.

Most bombings have been judged to be terrorism in that they have a political or ideological motivation. The Nashville bombing has yet to be labeled by law enforcement as such, not that the average citizen couldn't be forgiven for concluding  the Christmas bombing was "terror" in their minds. [The distinction of an act of "terrorism" is not lost on the home owners and business people who may lose insurance coverage if December 25th was officially designated an act of terror.]

As the FBI continues the investigation into the Christmas bombing and we navigate the aftermath we will try to put it in the context of the threat of such violence from domestic and international sources. To do so TNWAC has invited Malcolm Nance, an expert in analyzing and countering terrorist violence. Nance literally wrote the book on it. A prolific author he produced the "Terrorist Recognition Handbook: A Practitioner's  Manual for Predicting and Identifying Terrorist Activities." He has also written extensively on combatting the Islamic State and on Russian hacking attacks on American cyber systems in furtherance of political and national security objectives. Nance's counter-terrorism activities include work in the field to combat terrorist activities.

Nance retired from the Navy after 20 years and promotion to Senior Chief Petty Officer. Among his post-military pursuits was work in preparing Navy special operations forces, SEALs and others, in methods to endure captivity at the hands of a new class of enemies like Al Qaeda militants. He also worked in security and intelligence activities in Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion. Along the way he became an expert on extremist threats in Iraq and literally wrote the book on ISIS producing a handbook that became a counter-terrorism bible. Nance’s research and writing about ISIS’ use of electronic media led to his dive into what was to emerge as a wide-ranging Russian information warfare capability and campaign.

Hosting the conversation with Malcolm Nance will be TNWAC's founding president and retired Navy Intelligence Officer, LCDR Patrick Ryan. Among his experiences working in Middle East affairs was assignment as chief of terrorism analysis at U.S. Central Command during the bombings of USMTM in Riyadh and the USAF barracks in al-Khobar. He completed his 26 years in the Navy in 1998, on a one-year, Intelligence Community research project into the emergence of the Al Qaeda threat.

Join us on Tuesday, January 5th at 6:00 pm, as Nance and Ryan discuss the Nashville bombing, the domestic terror threat -- called the "greatest threat to the homeland" by FBI Director Wray -- and the ever present international terror that to U.S. interests.

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