US, Australia cut back war games more than Covid fears
A significant US-Australia joint armed service exercise will just do it this season despite pandemic concerns but will be drastically scaled-again, a senior Australian military officer said Tuesday.
The biannual “Talisman Sabre” war games - regarded as a key symbol of the countries’ alliance - will take place in July, but will be roughly half the most common size, as the quantity of foreign troops entering Australia will be limited.
Vice Admiral David Johnston said about 17,000 personnel will need part in the training, with 2,000 foreign forces getting into Australia and undergoing a good 14-day quarantine.
“This year… there will be less foreign forces operating on Australian territory,” he told a Senate hearing.
“But all of those who will come in onto Australian territory could have had to possess been through quarantine practices.”
Australia has largely contained local transmitting of the coronavirus and the amount of overseas visitors allowed to enter the country has been tightly restricted within the last 18 months.
Both Australian and American armed service officials have been keen to start to see the exercise just do it, not least as Australia comes under sustained diplomatic pressure from China.
Plans have been devote place to keep most of the foreign forces offshore for the duration of the exercise.
The exercise also contains personnel from Canada, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Britain.
In 2019, the exercise included 34,000 usually Australian and American personnel.
