Australia/USA — Exercise Talisman Sabre 2011

More than 22,000 Aus­tralian Defence and US Defense per­son­nel are par­tic­i­pat­ing in the mil­i­tary train­ing exer­cise Tal­is­man Sabre 2011 in Aus­tralia 11–29 July.

Tal­is­man Sabre is a bien­ni­al train­ing activ­i­ty joint­ly spon­sored by the US Pacif­ic Com­mand and Aus­tralian Defence Force (ADF) Joint Oper­a­tions Com­mand to train the US 7th Fleet and Aus­tralian Deploy­able Joint Head­quar­ters staffs as a des­ig­nat­ed Com­bined Task Force. 

Brigadier Bob Brown, the Aus­tralian spokesman for Tal­is­man Sabre, said that the exer­cise is a unique and invalu­able oppor­tu­ni­ty to exer­cise com­bined and joint Defence capa­bil­i­ty between Aus­tralia and the US. 

“This is a major under­tak­ing which reflects the close­ness of the Aus­tralian and US alliance and the strength of the mil­i­tary-to-mil­i­tary rela­tion­ship,” Brigadier Brown said. 

This year’s exer­cise is the first time there will be sig­nif­i­cant involve­ment from oth­er Aus­tralian and US gov­ern­ment agencies. 

Active par­tic­i­pa­tion by Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment agen­cies includes the Depart­ment of For­eign Affairs and Trade, AusAID, Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Police, and the Asia Pacif­ic Civ­il-Mil­i­tary Cen­tre of Excellence. 

US agen­cies par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Exer­cise include the Office of the Coor­di­na­tor for Recon­struc­tion and Sta­bi­liza­tion, and mem­bers of the US Civil­ian Response Corps from the Depart­ments of State, Jus­tice, Com­merce, Agri­cul­ture, Home­land Secu­ri­ty, Health & Human Ser­vices, and the US Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Development. 

The inclu­sion of civ­il agen­cies this year will help to strength­en civ­il-mil­i­tary col­lab­o­ra­tion for future oper­a­tions and the bilat­er­al part­ner­ships between the US and Australia. 

Approx­i­mate­ly 14,000 US and 8,500 Aus­tralian per­son­nel will con­duct sea, land, and air train­ing pre­dom­i­nant­ly in the Shoal­wa­ter Bay Train­ing Area near Rock­hamp­ton, but also in Roy­al Aus­tralian Air Force Bases in Townsville, Dar­win, Tin­dal and Amber­ley. Exer­cis­es will also be con­duct­ed in the mar­itime areas of the Coral, Tim­or and Ara­fu­ra Seas. 

The ADF has con­duct­ed a full envi­ron­men­tal impact assess­ment on the Shoal­wa­ter Bay region and strong mea­sures have been put in place for par­tic­i­pants to respect and pro­tect the marine envi­ron­ment with­in which they will be operating. 

Addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion on the exer­cise and envi­ron­men­tal mea­sures is avail­able at http://www.defence.gov.au/opEx/exercises/ts11/

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

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