Two CH-47F Chinooks from the 5th Aviation Regiment and two NH90 helicopters from the Royal New Zealand Air Force prepare to land in Charters Towers as part of Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025.
Planning for Australia’s largest military exercise – Talisman Sabre – is well underway, with international partners having the opportunity to meet with each other, and Australian planning colleagues, in Canberra recently.
Designed to accelerate planning and strengthen alignment across participating nations, the engagement of the Australian planning team with Defence attachés from a number of participating nations has set the stage for an expanded and more integrated iteration of the exercise.
Director-General Joint Collective Training Commodore Phillipa Hay emphasised the importance of early collaboration in shaping the exercise’s success.
“Engagements like this are fundamental to how we build a truly integrated, multinational exercise,” Commodore Hay said.
“By bringing key partners together early, we are strengthening the shared understanding, trust and alignment that underpin Talisman Sabre 2027.”
Talisman Sabre is a bilaterally designed, Australian-United States activity, delivered through fully integrated multinational planning and execution.
The 2027 iteration will expand from previous years, incorporating 24 additional partner nations and a combined planning workforce of around 800 personnel, recognising the essential nature of alliances and partnerships in an increasingly contested Indo-Pacific.
The engagement session served as a pivotal moment in the exercise’s planning cycle, enabling partners to contribute to exercise design and directly shape desired outcomes.
For Defence attachés and representatives in attendance, this early engagement underscored the importance of integrating capabilities and ensuring a unified approach to combined joint warfighting.
Wing Commander Zac Smit, SO1 Field Training Exercises, highlighted the collaborative focus driving the planning effort.
“Together, we are focused on turning our shared resolve into a coherent plan, ensuring we can effectively deliver one of the Indo-Pacific’s largest and most complex warfighting exercises,” he said.
“Multinational planning is where we build the relationships that carry through to execution and ultimately define the success of Talisman Sabre and future activities.”
Talisman Sabre 2027 will focus on normalising integrated operational capability, readiness across participating forces, strengthening theatre-wide logistics and force flow, and enhancing interoperability and readiness across combined joint forces.
The scale and scope of the exercise reflect a shared commitment among allies and partners to regional security and stability.
“Talisman Sabre 2027 will be one of the most complex and large-scale activities we have undertaken,” Commodore Hay said.
“The participation of our allies and partners reflects a shared interest in integrating our capabilities and operating together to contribute to regional security and stability in the Indo-Pacific.”
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Issued by Department of Defence, Canberra, ACT
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