Lieutenant General Joel Vowell, Deputy Commanding General for U.S. Army Pacific (USARPAC) and Australian Defence Force Chief of Joint Operations, Vice Admiral Justin Jones, AO, CSC, RAN address the media at the opening ceremony for Exercise Talisman Sabre 25 onboard HMAS Adelaide in Sydney, New South Wales. (Courtesy photo by ADF photographer LSIS Danyellah Hill)
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Lieutenant General Joel Vowell, Deputy Commanding General for U.S. Army Pacific (USARPAC) addresses media at the opening ceremony for Exercise Talisman Sabre 25 onboard HMAS Adelaide in Sydney, New South Wales. (Courtesy photo by ADF photographer LSIS Danyellah Hill)
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Sydney, Australia – Exercise Talisman Sabre 25 formally commenced today from the flight deck of HMAS Adelaide in Sydney Harbor, launching military activities involving 19 nations and over 30,000 service members across land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. This marks the largest bilateral military training event between the United States and Australia to date.
With unprecedented scale in both geography and participating nations, the strategic message is unmistakable, Talisman Sabre 25 represents a cornerstone of allied military cooperation between Australia and the United States, demonstrating enduring resolve to ensure regional stability.
“Ultimately, there are two things that Talisman Sabre, and exercises like this, as we campaign through the theater provide,” said Lt. Gen. Joel B. Vowell, Deputy Commanding General, U.S. Army Pacific.
“It’s readiness to respond when our nations call us to do that, and it’s effectively a deterrent mechanism, because our ultimate goal, part two here, is no war. By rehearsing, by practicing together, by staying in tune with each other, we are providing that readiness to our armies, our navies, our air forces, our space forces, our cyber forces.”
Throughout Talisman Sabre 25, the U.S. military will join the Australian Defence Force and like-minded partners from across the world to train together, enhancing interoperability and refining procedures to ensure continued regional stability. U.S service members from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and Space Force are all participating, integrating their capabilities across all domains with the Australian Defence Force and multinational partners. This ensures the combined force is rehearsed and ready to meet requirements for continued stability and security across the Indo-Pacific.
The participation of 19 partner nations, the most in Talisman Sabre history, underscores a shared understanding that lasting security in the Indo-Pacific depends on collective commitment, strength, and deterrence against modern challenges.
“We do interoperability with three facets, human, technical, and procedural facets. Those are important because you can’t build those things in a crisis, a humanitarian assistance disaster response mission, some sort of conflict in the future,” said Vowell. “We build those capacities and capabilities forward together, as the saying goes, if we could do all this alone, then we could go fast, but because we want to go far, we have to do it together.”
This represents the most complex Talisman Sabre iteration ever conducted. The scope of geography being trained upon, the number of service members present, and the advanced technology and capabilities being demonstrated reflect the professionalism and lethality of participating nations. Over the coming weeks, these troops will be tested, capabilities rehearsed and resolve for enduring regional stability clearly demonstrated.
