Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025 marked the largest-ever iteration of this biennial multilateral military exercise, unfolding across 5,300km of Australia’s vast landscape from July 13 to 27, 2025. More than 40,000 military personnel comprised of soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen from Australia, the USA, and 17 allied nations converged to conduct complex, large-scale scenarios simulating high-intensity conflict.

The scope included operations at 80 training areas and bases, with participation by over 150 military aircraft and 30 naval vessels. Brigadier Damian Hill, the exercise director, likened it to a "mini-Olympics" of military exercises due to its scale and diversity of participants.

Among returning participants were major partners like Canada, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, South Korea, Tonga, and the United Kingdom. For the first time, India, Singapore, Thailand, the Netherlands, and Norway joined the drills, while Malaysia and Vietnam attended as observers to assess future involvement.

Nature of Operations And Scenarios

Airborne Operations: US Army paratroopers performed night time jumps from C-17A transport aircraft, immediately transitioning to a rigorous 50km march to seize strategic airfields.

Rapid Deployment: US Marines arrived at separate airfields via MV-22B Osprey aircraft, swiftly expanding perimeters to facilitate the arrival of reinforcements deep within the scenario’s enemy territory.

Amphibious Landings: Naval fleets from the USA, Australia, Japan, and South Korea delivered troops and equipment ashore using landing craft and hovercraft—establishing beachheads in tactically significant coastal zones.

These activities mirror real-world contingency operations expected in an Asia-Pacific conflict, including rapid airfield seizures and robust amphibious assaults meant to secure logistics and control critical maritime approaches.

The Fictional Adversary: People’s Republic of Olvana

A distinctive feature of the 2025 exercise was the use of the notional "People’s Republic of Olvana" as the enemy force. Olvana is a fictional nation featured in the US Army's Decisive Action Training Environment (DATE), characterized as a communist regional hegemon with a modernizing military and a massive economy. The scenario's details, including a capital named Shanghai and geographic boundaries corresponding to modern China, left little doubt that the exercise served as a rehearsal for conflict with China in all but name.

Shift In Strategic Focus

Where previous iterations focused on counter-insurgency inspired by Middle East campaigns, the current scenario signalled a clear pivot to preparing for major conventional conflict against a peer adversary—underscoring concerns over the growing power and assertiveness of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Brigadier Hill noted that while official objectives do not single out China, the strategic posture is unmistakably framed around deterrence and denial, as articulated in Australia’s National Defence Strategy.

Joint and Interoperable Capabilities

A core emphasis throughout Talisman Sabre 2025 was interoperability. Activities such as battalion-sized airdrops after intercontinental flights, multi-national seizure of remote airfields, and amphibious landings were designed to test how allied militaries integrate techniques and procedures. For instance:

The US Marine Rotational Force, Darwin (MRF-D), executed a series of airfield seizures across Australia’s Outback, simulating Pacific island-hopping campaigns reminiscent of WWII.

The exercise included live firings of advanced weaponry, such as the US Army’s Typhon missile system (Mid-Range Capability, MRC) and Australia’s newly acquired HIMARS systems, for the first time in the Pacific.

Deterrence And Advanced Weapons Demonstrations

A highlight of the exercise was the historic firing of the MRC Typhon system from Australian soil by the Hawaii-based 3rd Multi-Domain Task Force, successfully launching an SM-6 missile at a maritime target hundreds of miles away. This demonstration showed the ability to rapidly deploy and employ advanced land-based maritime strike systems, projecting a deterrent posture against Chinese naval operations in the vital First Island Chain, which includes southern Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines.

The Typhon system can launch both SM-6 and Tomahawk missiles, enabling dominance over a 1,000-mile sphere and complicating any adversary’s attempts to break into the Western Pacific. A similar unit has been forward-deployed to the Philippines since April 2024, further reinforcing the regional deterrence net.

Additionally, the US Army fielded land-based hypersonic missile systems, such as the 1,700-mile-range Dark Eagle, enhancing allied capability to counter China’s anti-access/area-denial strategies around Taiwan and the broader South China Sea.

Message And Regional Implications

While exercise leaders publicly stress the focus on allied cooperation and readiness over targeting any single nation, the scenario and capabilities on display clearly serve as a strategic signal to Beijing. Live missile firings, intercontinental airborne operations, and seamless allied integration all send a potent message of deterrence. The exercise showcased the ability to project and sustain combat power across vast distances, an essential factor given the geography of the Indo-Pacific.

China’s response has consistently included surveillance of the exercises, though this iteration saw no reported presence of PLA spy ships. Furthermore, US Congressional analysis has noted China’s view that deployment of MRC batteries in the Indo-Pacific is destabilizing and potentially escalatory—a recognition that these allied initiatives are shaping the regional security environment.

Conclusion

Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025 served both as a crucible for multinational military cooperation and as a demonstration of commitment to collective defence in an era of rising tensions with China. Its broad geographic sweep, investment in interoperability, and showcasing of advanced strike systems represented a credible and resolute deterrence posture. As a rehearsal for high-end warfighting in the Indo-Pacific, it underlined the USA and allies' preparedness to defend their interests—and to keep vital sea lanes and partner nations secure—against any future challenge.

Based On ANI Report