When I was in the army we learned about the Strategic Corporal. When fighting a war, especially an insurgency, it is often the actions of low ranking soldiers on the ground which can have a major impact on the campaign, especially when the battle is taking place in the media as well as the battlefield.

The action of the American serviceman who has massacred three households of civilians in Afghanistan has an impact far beyond the battlefield, and may have an influence on the USApolicy in Afghanistan. The President and senior officers in the American Army must be very frustrated to find all their hard work in trying to develop USA – Afghan relations has again been set back by the actions of one individual.

Do your plans take into account the actions of one individual who is determined to wreck, for whatever reason, what you are trying to achieve? This could be the person causing the incident in the first place, or trying to sabotage your recovery efforts. When we look at the risks to the organisation do we look at the risk of someone deliberately causing an incident, especially if they have the incident knowledge or the organisation’s vulnerabilities?

During the management of an incident do we take steps to ensure that any individual cannot have the opportunity to sabotage, set back a recovery or majorly embarrass the organisation? We must recognise this as a risk, take into account our vulnerabilities and have plans in place for dealing with this type of incident.