Talisman Sabre 2025 planning begins at conference in Australia

Canberra, AUSTRALIA – The Australian Defence Force and U.S. Department of Defense service members and civilians met at HMAS Harman to kick-off planning efforts for the biennial, mil-to-mil exercise, Talisman Sabre 2025, April 8-12.

This will be the eleventh iteration of Talisman Sabre, a bilaterally designed exercise between Australia and the U.S. with multinational planning and participation. Last year, more than 30,000 participants from 13 nations deployed across the continent from Darwin to Sydney and as far east as Norfolk Island in support of Talisman Sabre 2023.

“Every year, we receive more and more requests from partner nations asking to participate” said Brigadier Damian Hill, the Australian exercise director for Talisman Sabre 2025. “It’s a testament to the world-class quality of the exercise, and we’re already looking at up to 18 nations for next year’s iteration.”

Often described as the ‘Olympics of military exercises,’ Talisman Sabre gives militaries an opportunity to execute dynamic activities across all domains (land, air, maritime, cyber, space). For example, in 2023, participants conduct an amphibious insertion, airborne jump, high mobility rocket system rapid insertion, live fire exercise with a Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center rotation, joint logistics and petroleum over-the-shore operations, air base operations, and carrier strike group naval operations.

“Our collective goal for Talisman Sabre 2025 is to build combined joint warfighting capabilities with Allies and partners,” said Lt. Col. Jon Peterson, lead U.S. planner for Talisman Sabre 2025. “We will continue to build on the success and lessons learned from Talisman Sabre 2023 and focus on how this large-scale exercise will contribute toward maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

Following the conclusion of this week’s Talisman Sabre 2025 Concept Development Conference, planners will continue to refine their products ahead of the Talisman Sabre Initial Planning Conference in Brisbane, where all participating nations will be invited to begin multinational planning.