The largest-ever war fighting drills in Australia, Exercise Talisman Sabre, is underway and expected to attract the attention of Chinese spy ships.
Talisman Sabre began in 2005 as a biennial joint exercise between the United States and Australia. This year, more than 35,000 military personnel from 19 nations, including Canada, Fiji, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Tonga, and the United Kingdom, will take part over three weeks, Australia's defense department said on Sunday.
00:30It's the target of the countries that are participating, of course.
00:52We've got 19 countries here, they all come for a multitude of reasons.
00:58Australian training ranges offer the ability to, what we've just seen in the last hour,
01:03to employ systems that many countries can't do in their homeland to test the interoperability,
01:09or can we come together?
01:11So we just observed a HIMARS firing that had Singaporean, Australian and US vehicles all together for it.
01:18What they would have had to have done is made sure their procedures were compatible,
01:23their ability to apply safety was compatible with each other,
01:27that they are able to manoeuvre into firing positions and then fire and do the post-firing checks.
01:33Countries come because they want to both be experts with themselves,
01:38but like Australia, we recognise we're stronger when we're operating with partners.
01:42This is why we have 19 countries here partnering to make sure they're as capable with each other as they can be.
01:49The environment having changed now where our focus is very much in the region and in the homeland,
02:09the shifting availability of military technology means that countries don't have to come close to Australia as they did in the past.
02:17We had thought the sea air gap, the waters to our north were a great protective buffer.
02:23Well, modern weaponry very quickly traverses that gap now.
02:27So we have to respond to that and it means that the idea of protecting the homeland,
02:33it means that countries don't have to come close to us to present a threat or to seek to potentially impact the way a government might make decisions.
02:43It can do it from afar and we have to be able to respond to that.
