US-Australian Exercise Talisman Sabre 25 Commences

 

The eleventh iteration of Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025 commenced on July 13 with an opening ceremony aboard HMAS Adelaide (L01) in Sydney Harbor. 30,000 troops are scheduled to participate across land, sea and air domains, in an exercise area stretching from Christmas Island in the west to Papua New Guinea to the north. The exercise is scheduled to conclude on August 4.

The exercise is jointly led by Australia and the United States, with Australian Vice Admiral Justin Jones and Lt. Gen. Joel B. Vowell hosting the opening ceremony. Canada, Fiji, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Tonga, and the United Kingdom are active participants, with Malaysia and Vietnam attending as observers. 

The UK Carrier Strike Group led by HMS Prince of Wales (R09) will be taking part in the exercise, notwithstanding a reported request by US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby for the CSG to be retained in European waters. Since its Singapore port call, the CSG has been supplemented by the Australian frigate HMAS Sydney (F42), while the New Zealand frigate HMNZS Te Kaha (F77) and Spanish Álvaro de Bazán Class frigate ESPS Mendez Nunez (F104) have split away, the latter heading for Japan as a pathfinder for the CSG.

While a range of capabilities will be exercised and systems live-fired during Talisman Sabre, a common challenge to all activity will be the logistics of operating over such a large area, much of it sparsely populated. Almost all participants seek to work together in the face of common security issues with China, but the emphasis in the exercise is not on a particular threat but on improving interoperability across a challenging environment; Taiwan is not present, neither as a participant nor as an observer.