The news that this year’s Talisman Sabre exercises off Australia will be the biggest yet and include the largest number of participating countries to date marks significant multilateralization of what was previously a mainly US-Australian exercise.
According to a news release put out by Minister for Defence Richard Marles late last week, Talisman Sabre 2023 will see approximately 30,000 military personnel take part in the exercise to practice “high-end, multi-domain warfare capabilities, build and affirm military-to-military ties and interoperability, and strengthen strategic partnerships across the region.”
Confirmed participating partner nations in Talisman Sabre 2023 include Fiji, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, France, United Kingdom, Canada and Germany.
The Philippines, Singapore and Thailand will attend as observers.
The exact details of the full list of participating personnel and platforms has not been confirmed, although Japan has confirmed it will be sending all or part of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) task group comprising of the helicopter destroyer JNS Izumo, destroyers Samidare and Shiranui, landing ship Shimokita, frigate Kumano and a submarine to the exercise.
The task group, which will also have four helicopters on board the Izumo and a pair of air-cushioned landing craft on the Shimokita, would be participating in the exercise as part of the JMSDF’s annual Indo-Pacific Deployment, which is taking place this year between April and September.
Meanwhile, German involvement will include naval troops and air units as well as an infantry company from the Heer, according to a February news release from the Bundeswehr. The German troops will carry out airmobile training during Talisman Sabre.
The 14-day exercise will include large scale logistics, multi-domain firepower demonstrations, land combat, amphibious landings and air operations, and previous years’ exercises also involved complex naval warfare scenarios that included aircraft carrier operations.
The increased involvement from other countries is a significant step up from previous iterations of previous Talisman Sabre exercises, which mostly involved the Australian and American militaries with smaller contingents from New Zealand, the United Kingdom and more recently, the Japanese.
The Republic of Korea will be making its second appearance at this year’s exercise, having made its debut in 2021 with the participation of a Republic of Korea Navy (ROKN) destroyer.
That Indo-Pacific countries such as Indonesia, Fiji and Tonga will make their debut at this year’s exercise is significant, and adds a regional flavour to the training activity, and ties in with Defence’s and the government’s efforts to build close military ties with regional countries.
It also underscores the vastly different regional and global geopolitical and security situation since the last exercise, which took place against the backdrop of closed international borders, the COVID-19 pandemic; before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the significantly ramped up tensions around Taiwan.
Talisman Sabre 2023 will run from 22 July to 4 August primarily in Queensland but also in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and New South Wales. It will then be followed by the Malabar naval exercises off Australia involving the members of the Quad: Australia, India, Japan and the United States.