1 April 2025
The historical Edinburgh Castle in Scotland was the backdrop for last year’s executive council gathering of the American, British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand (ABCANZ) armies’ program.
Now in its 79th year, ABCANZ will head Down Under in 2025.
The ABCANZ is a long-standing gathering of Deputy Chiefs from the Five Eyes armies and the Commanding General, Training and Education Command of the United States Marine Corps.
The meeting is a unique opportunity for the Deputy Chiefs to meet and freely exchange ideas and concepts around shared security challenges and provide guidance to the ABCANZ program.
Interoperability is key to how the five armies and United States Marine Corps meet the shared challenges of war.
The ABCANZ program develops standards that all five nations include into their national doctrine or capability development streams. These standards are employed in significant training exercises such as Talisman Sabre and Project Convergence, both exercise iterations set to be their biggest yet in 2025.
'Being interoperable, having common systems, processes and standards is essential.'
Deputy Chief of Army Major General Chris Smith is looking forward to being part of a program so focused on shared collaborative outcomes.
“The main feature of this meeting was a common sense of urgency to get our armies and marine forces ready for an uncertain future and the potential of warfare of a kind we have not experienced for decades,” Major General Smith said.
“Being interoperable, having common systems, processes and standards is essential.
“I am looking forward to hosting my counterparts in Sydney later this year.”
The program has been around since 1947. ABCANZ is the only program that brings together Army and Marine Corps leaders from Five Eyes forces on a routine basis.
