Malcolm Nance


Malcolm Wrightson Nance is an American author and media commentator on terrorism, intelligence, insurgency, and torture. He is a former United States Navy senior chief petty officer specializing in naval cryptology.
Nance is an intelligence and foreign policy analyst who frequently discusses the history, personalities, and organization of jihadi radicalization and al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant ; Southwest Asian and African terror groups; as well as counterinsurgency and asymmetric warfare. Schooled in Arabic, he is active in the field of national security policy particularly, in anti- and counter-terrorism intelligence, terrorist strategy and tactics, torture and counter-ideology in combating Islamic extremism. In 2016, he published the book, Defeating ISIS: Who They Are, How They Fight, What They Believe, and published The Plot to Hack America the same year.
In 2014, he founded and became the executive director of the Terror Asymmetrics Project on Strategy, Tactics and Radical Ideologies, a Hudson, New York–based think tank.

Early life and education

Nance was born in Philadelphia, and attended the city's West Catholic Boys High School. He reportedly studied Spanish, French, and Latin, and took advantage of free classes in Russian and Chinese offered at South Philadelphia High School on Saturdays. In 2011, he received a bachelor of arts degree from New York's Excelsior College. Nance began working in the civilian intelligence arena through research into the history of the Soviet Union and its spying agency the KGB. He subsequently analyzed Middle East terrorism and sovereign nations with ties to the Russian Federation.

Military career

Nance served in the U.S. Navy for 20 years, from 1981 to 2001, receiving several military decorations. As a U.S. Navy specialist in Naval Cryptology, Nance was involved in numerous counter-terrorism, intelligence, and combat operations. He garnered expertise within the fields of intelligence and counterterrorism. He was also an instructor in wartime and peacetime Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, training Navy and Marine Corps pilots and aircrew how to survive as a prisoner of war. There Nance helped to initiate the Advanced Terrorism, Abduction and Hostage Survival course of instruction.
Nance took part in combat operations that occurred after the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings, was peripherally involved with the 1986 United States bombing of Libya, served on USS Wainwright during Operation Praying Mantis and was aboard during the sinking of the Iranian missile boat Joshan, served on USS Tripoli during the Gulf War, and assisted during a Banja Luka, Bosnia air strike.

Post-military career

Intelligence consulting

In 2001, after retiring from the Navy, Nance founded Special Readiness Services International, an intelligence support company. On the morning of 9/11, driving to Arlington he witnessed the crash of American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon. He acted as a first responder at the helipad crash site where he helped organize the rescue and recovery of victims. Subsequently, Nance served as an intelligence and security contractor in Iraq, Afghanistan, the UAE and North Africa.
Between 2005 and 2007 Nance was a visiting lecturer on counterterrorism in Sydney, Australia at Macquarie University's Centre on Policing, Intelligence and Counter-terrorism and at Victoria University of Wellington in Wellington, New Zealand.
Nance now directs a think tank that he founded, the "Terror Asymmetrics Project on Strategy, Tactics and Radical Ideologies", which analyzes counterterrorism. Nance is also a member of the advisory board of directors for the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.
On August 20, 2016, Nance told MSNBC viewers that Green Party's presidential nominee Jill Stein "has a show on Russia Today." Glenn Greenwald later wrote: "there is no disputing the fact that Nance’s statement was a falsehood, a fabrication, a lie. Stein did not have a show on RT, nor did she ever host a show on RT." Nance also accused Greenwald of being "an agent of Moscow" and "deep in the Kremlin pocket." He also stated that Greenwald "helped Snowden defect" and "reports into masters in Moscow." Greenwald accused Nance of lying.
On March 22, 2019, hours before Attorney General William Barr's controversial letter about the Mueller Report on the 2016 Trump campaign and its connections to Russia was released, Nance said the report would reveal treason exceeding that of Benedict Arnold.

Writing

In 2007, Nance wrote an article criticizing waterboarding for the counterinsurgency blog Small Wars Journal titled "Waterboarding is Torture... period." Nance wrote: "I know waterboarding is torture - because I did it myself." Nance claimed to have witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people. Republished in the Pentagon Early Bird, it set off a firestorm as the first credible description of the torture technique as used in SERE. The article strongly swayed the Pentagon against the use of the waterboard because its misuse would damage America's reputation worldwide. Nance claimed that using the torture techniques of America's former enemies dishonors the memory of U.S. service members who died in captivity through torture, and that torture does not produce credible intelligence. Nance was called to testify before the U.S. Congress about the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques". He told the House Judiciary Committee that: "Waterboarding is torture, period... I believe that we must reject the use of the waterboard for prisoners and captives and cleanse this stain from our national honor...water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs."
Nance's books on counter-terrorism and intelligence include: An End to al-Qaeda, Terrorist Recognition Handbook, The Terrorists of Iraq, Defeating ISIS, The Plot to Hack America, and Hacking ISIS. In 2018, he published The Plot to Destroy Democracy: How Putin and His Spies Are Undermining America and Dismantling the West. In 2019, he published The Plot to Betray America: How Team Trump Embraced Our Enemies, Compromised Our Security, and How We Can Fix It.

Controversy

According to the Washington Times, April 17, Nance came under scrutiny for writing on his Twitter "This is my nominee for first ISIS Suicide bombing of a Trump property", linking to an image of Trump Tower. Mr. Nance has since deleted the tweet but has yet to apologize.
Nance has pushed several false or unproven claims, often having to do with Russia or accusing those who challenge his statements to be Russian agents. In March, he tweeted that he was convinced that Carter Page was an F.B.I. double agent without any evidence or reason to believe so.
Nance has also stated that Glenn Greenwald is a Russian agent and falsely stated that he is a Fox News contributor, which the New York Post fact-checked and found to be false.

Filmography