this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2026
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Iran got all their bridges fixed? Damn. (lemmy.nz)
submitted 3 days ago by VetOfTheSeas@discuss.online to c/politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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[–] TotalSonic@lemmy.world 45 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

The USA certainly has rotting infrastructure additionally suffering from slow construction times, and inflated costs with bloated contracts going to feed leeches at the "top" of our trickle-up chain.

But the claim "Iran got all their bridges fixed" needs citation and sounds like some made up bs - it's very likely they repaired some of them, but the Iranian people have been suffering from massive bombardments for months, as well as decades of sanctions, and earthquake on top of this, so doubtful they have repaired most of what has been damaged, let alone all.

[–] Wirlocke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There's also the question of whether they rebuilt them fully or if they put up temporary bridges to keep traffic flowing.

[–] iocase@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 days ago

Yeah a Bailey bridge can still sit on top of the same abutments and columns (if intact) to allow traffic to pass under war time.

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 111 points 3 days ago (18 children)

The decline of the Roman empire was a wild thing for the people actually living on the ground. Imagine you're living in Alaska. You were born there and have never considered yourself anything but American. Your home is, as far as you're concerned, completely inseparable from America and as American as any other part of the country.

One day you see an emergency press conference on the TV. It's a press conference by governor. They're announcing that they just received word from Washington. The message said:

"We're sorry we have to do this. But the federal government just can no longer maintain our presence in Alaska. The country just can't afford it anymore. The national finances are exhausted and the nation must consolidate down to focus on its core territories. You will no longer be federally taxed, all federal troops will be withdrawn from the state, no federal dollars will be spent on the state, and Alaska will no longer receive representation in Congress. Existing US citizens in Alaska will retain their citizenship, but new children born in Alaska will be subject to the same citizenship rules as those born to American expatriates living overseas. We are granting Alaska full independence. We wish you the best. Good luck. But you are on your own."

Imagine what it would be like to be a resident of Alaska and to hear that message. How do you even respond to that? Do you stay in the US, leave Alaska, and move to the lower 48? Do you try to stick it out in the newly independent Alaskan nation? Can Alaska even survive as an independent nation?

In the modern world, we're not used to national governments just packing up and leaving a state or province. Governments work so hard to suppress even the possibility of revolt that the idea of one just abandoning a state or territory is a strange concept. But historically this does happen with declining empires. It really wouldn't even be that crazy of a move for a declining US. Alaska is a part of the US, but it isn't a core territory. The lower 48 is really the core of the United States. Territories beyond this are mostly money sinks useful for either resource extraction or power projection. Nice things to have, but not the US's core population and economic centers. I can foresee future scenarios where the US eventually just walks away from places like Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and other territories not contiguous with the US mainland. No empire lasts forever, and collapse tends to move from the periphery inward. On the ground in the periphery, this looks like the national government just announcing you're no longer part of the country.

[–] replicat@lemmy.world 34 points 3 days ago (2 children)

FWIW, Alaska and Hawaii are both key strategic locations for the US military which is why they are currently under US control.

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 33 points 3 days ago (8 children)

Yes. But we're talking about a scenario where the US is collapsing like every other empire before it has. Rome would have liked to keep hold of England, but they just couldn't afford it anymore. Alaska is a nice thing to have strategically, but it's not a core engine of the US economy or one of it's major population centers. It doesn't pay for itself. When empires decline, these far flung "nice to have" territories are the first to go.

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[–] ironpangolin29@lemmy.ca 11 points 2 days ago

It should have been Canada all along anyway. Alaskans are just secret Canadians with a deed to the area.

[–] Jiral@lemmy.world 13 points 3 days ago (2 children)

You don't have to look back that far. Austria 1918 was pretty much that, except that not a region on the edge was lost but the capital Vienna lost most of the hinterland with the remaining rump state not considered viable. One of the largest cities on earth, at the time, went from exponential growth into decline. Population size still has not recovered, 100 years later.

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[–] im_fine_sandy@nord.pub 22 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I don't think this really captures what it would have felt like to be abandoned by Rome.

For all it's ills Rome brought civilisation and technological advantages to the places it conquered.

When Rome withdrew I think the most keenly felt loss in many areas would have been to be cut off from that ordered civilisation.

One moment you're a citizen of Rome, and the next your grain is looted and your daughters have been taken by barbarians.

It might be something more like, an announcement that it's no longer profitable to maintain internet access for your entire country, so the network is simply being shut off, never to return.

As an aside, I'm in Western Australia. In terms of national identity I think many of us are fairly ambivalent to being "Australian" as opposed to being "Westralian". 50 years ago there was a referendum about succession which actually won support - we chose to succeed from Australia. The Australian government saw sense after that and acquiesced to our demands, so it never went ahead. My point is though, if you live in a place and that place is cut off from the broader nation, do you lose your national identity or does your existing national identity just become more closely defined.

[–] thanksforallthefish@literature.cafe 18 points 3 days ago

1933 referendum is a bit more than 50years ago by my count...

If you're thinking of Lang Hancock's campaign in the 70s there was no referendum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secessionism_in_Western_Australia

BTW it's secession and seceding - spelt with a u it means something totally different

[–] tyranny@crazypeople.online 9 points 3 days ago (2 children)

"Territories beyond this are mostly money sinks useful for either resource extraction or power projection."

how can somewhere be both a money sink and useful for resource extraction? that's just paying for resources

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

Something can be necessary and useful while still be an unprofitable money sink. I pay for water from my city's utility. It's a useful resource, but it's still a money sink. I don't earn any profit from the water I get from the city. In fact, it all goes down the drain in one form or another, and I have to pay even more money for the city to take the used water off my property! I absolutely need it; I couldn't live in the home I do if the water was cut off. But it's not a profit center for my household finances. Just because something is necessary and useful does not mean it is profitable.

[–] cuerdo@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago

It always goes back to rights and responsibilities. Assholes want all the rights, none of the responsibilities. You will see this pattern everywhere in life.

[–] matlag@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Isn't that what Malaysia did to Singapore in 1965?

[–] JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, and did singapore even thank them for it? I think not!

[–] matlag@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

They should, though, given today's respective development levels.

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Yes. Though that wasn't really a case of imperial collapse.

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[–] G4Z@lemmy.world 148 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (13 children)

That would be funny but it's pretty unlikely to be true. Fixing bridges has got to be fucking difficult.

That's why it's a war crime.

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 51 points 3 days ago (10 children)

It's not as difficult as you might think. Or, more precisely, it's a lot more difficult to destroy a bridge than you might expect. Look at how much trouble Ukraine has had trying to keep the Kerch Strait bridge out of commission. Or look at the hundreds of bombing runs the US did in Vietnam to try and knock out one stupid bridge.

It's easy enough to temporarily shut a bridge down. Bombing its road deck is pretty easy. The deck is usually exposed to the sky, so bombs can be dropped right on it from above. And the deck is thin enough to be fairly vulnerable to bombing.

The problem is that bombing a bridge deck doesn't actually destroy the bridge. At best you create a hole in the bridge deck a meter or two across. That can shut a bridge down temporarily, but it doesn't actually damage the bridge's structure. To repair the deck you do something like:

  1. Clean up the hole. Remove any loose concrete chunks with a hammer, cut off any exposed rebar with an angle grinder.
  2. Drill holes at regular intervals through the edge of the hole.
  3. Run new rebar spanning the hole. Epoxy rebar into old bridge deck.
  4. Attach some plywood to the bottom side of the bridge deck to server as as mold.
  5. Pour new concrete and let cure.

This can be done in a day or two. And on a multi-lane-bridge, traffic can continue to flow around the bomb site at reduced capacity.

If you actually want to destroy a bridge, you can't just hit a random spot on the bridge deck. If it's a big truss bridge, a direct hit on a key truss member could cause the entire bridge to collapse. But those are very precise targets to hit. And if it's just a bridge deck sitting on beams sitting on piers, the only way to destroy the bridge will be to knock out the support piers.

The problem with destroying them is that bridge piers are both hard to hit and extremely resilient. They're protected from above by the bridge deck, so to hit them you'll have to glide a bomb in horizontally. And even if you manage to hit them, they're utterly massive. They have to support the entire weight of the bridge above. Plus they're often directly in a river's channel. This means they're built to survive the forces of water current and ice collision if the bridge is in a temperate climate. Plus they're built extra thick to resist the corrosive effects of the river water. Now, if you do actually manage to knock out a support pier, replacing it will be a nightmare. But that's a very difficult thing to do.

It's actually a lot more difficult to destroy a bridge than people realize. Knocking a hole in a bridge deck is easy. But bridge decks are easily and quickly repairable.

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[–] FlexibleToast@lemmy.world 59 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Depends on what you call fixed. Good enough to work, maybe. Back to original condition, I really doubt it.

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 55 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (7 children)

Yeah, it's not really a direct comparison. Bridges in Iran are generally badly damaged like this (real examples):

But the Francis Scott Key bridge is fully just gone for the entire load-bearing span and needs to be rebuilt.

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 35 points 3 days ago (2 children)

That's pretty easy to fix. The bottom image just has a hole in the bridge deck. Clean up the hole, epoxy in some new rebar, build some forms, pour new concrete, and you're done.

The top image is worse, but it's still not as bad as it seems. Look closely at that bridge. That looks to be a bridge made of precast concrete. Look how the whole fallen span seems to have come down in one big piece. It's a very clean break.

When I say precast, I mean literally that. The beams for that bridge are not poured on site. They're made in a factory and trucked in. A precast concrete plant could have a whole yard full of beams just sitting there, ready to go. How you build such a bridge:

  1. Construct bridge piers by either casting in place or driving precast piles into the ground.
  2. Either cast the pier top caps in place or use precast caps carried in and placed by crane.
  3. Hoist precast beams and place them spanning the top caps.
  4. Once beams are in place, construct formwork and cast a bridge deck on top of the precast beams.

In a bridge like this, often the only part that is poured in place is the bridge deck. To fix the bottom bridge, you would remove any debris, clean up the edges, drop in some new beams, build some forms, and cast a new bridge deck.

And what I'm describing is just typical precast concrete bridges. I'm describing what you can do even when you haven't optimized your whole bridge construction sector for easy repairability. But Iran has been preparing for a US attack for a generation. The reason the US's decapitation strike failed to cause a regime collapse was because Iran isn't some tin pot dictatorship lead by one brutal despot. It's an advanced nation that's built its governmental system from the ground up with survivability in mind. There was an elaborate continuity of government plan in place, and as the US and Israel assassinated Iranian leadership, the conveyor belt just moved folks up to replace those killed. It's a modern day governmental version of the ancient Immortals. Iran's even granted a lot of their military forces a high degree of autonomy. There are a whole bunch of missile crews hiding in underground bases with standing orders to launch at pre-chosen targets if they don't receive word from leadership after a certain amount of time. In short, Iran has gone to great lengths to make its government and military highly resilient to attack.

And if they did this for their government, why not their infrastructure? You can design bridges with quick repairability in mind. For example, you can standardize sizes as much as possible. Instead of custom designing everything, design your precast bridges to use only a small number of different beam sizes and standardized length. You tell your bridge engineers:

  • All bridge spans must be in 2 meter increments, 4m, 6m, 8m, 10m, 12m, etc.
  • All bridges must be built from one of six beam cross-sections. Do not design custom sections.
  • All bridges must be designed to use the minimum strength of concrete any of our batch plants produce.
  • All bridge decks must be designed to use the lowest grade of rebar commonly available.
  • The distance between bridge beams must be in one of a few allowable dimensions to allow the use of pre-made drop-in formwork. * All bridges must be constructed with precast piers, pier caps, and beams with bridge decks cast in place using drop-in metal formwork.
  • All bridge piers must be designed with twice the usual factor of safety, ridiculously overbuilding them to make them extremely resistant to bomb damage.

I have no idea what Iran is doing. But I do have a background in structural engineering. I've taken a literal course called "bridge design." If you asked me to design a nation's bridges to be extremely repairable, this is how I would do it. The piers are the hard part to replace, so you make those far, far stronger than they need to be. That way if a bomb blows off a chunk of a bridge pier, there's still plenty of capacity left. Everything else? You standardize the hell out of it and then mass produce and stockpile replacement parts. If you only allow six beam sections and 6 beam lengths, that means there will only be 36 types of beams used across all of your bridges. You can then produce and stockpile huge numbers of these beams, allowing extremely rapid repair after an attack.

We typically don't build bridges to this level of standardization. The problem with using few standard sizes is that you inevitably end up over-designing your bridge. You can't design the perfect custom cross-section to carry your loads with the absolute minimum amount of material possible. So your bridges end up heavier and more expensive than they could otherwise be. But if you're willing to pay a bit more for a much, much more resilient transportation system, standardization can accomplish this.

Again, no idea if Iran is actually doing this. But considering the lengths they've gone to make their whole regime resilient to attack, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume they've applied the same philosophy to their physical infrastructure. You don't try to build an indestructible bridge. You just make your bridges easy to repair instead. If you do it right, repairing a bridge will be far cheaper than dropping a bomb on one.

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[–] mannycalavera@feddit.uk 21 points 3 days ago (4 children)

That's why it's a war crime.

Depends on who's doing the bombing.

The USA don't answer to nobody.

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[–] TheCriticalMember@aussie.zone 15 points 3 days ago

*Dad voice - fixing bridges is a war crime?

But I'm actually a bridge engineer and you're spot on, shit takes a shocking amount of time even for small, simple bridges. That's why they last for 100 years.

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[–] Fontasia@feddit.nl 40 points 3 days ago (1 children)

"Hey, you lot, you're now Byzantines."

"What, no we're Roman."

"No, it's cool, it rolls off the tongue, give it a year, you'll love it."

"No, we're part of the Roman Empire."

"No, think about it, Byzantine empire. Sounds majestic."

"..."

"Catch you later... Bring tithes."

[–] j_overgrens@feddit.nl 14 points 3 days ago (2 children)

You're making a joke but people in the Byzantine empire called themselves Roman. Greeks living in 1920s Turkey still called themselves Roman.

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[–] auntieclokwise@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

Bridges can be really hard to take out, depending on the kind of bridge and how it was hit. If the bombs just punched a hole in the deck, that's a pretty easy repair. The Kerch Strait bridge has been hit by Ukraine many times and is still standing and has been fixed (arguable though that Ukraine hasn't yet intended to bring it down). The Francis Scott Key Bridge was just demolished. When it collapsed, there wasn't really anything worth repairing left. Which means it isn't a quick repair job, it's a whole new build. And some kinds of bridges are way easier to build than others. A big suspension/cable stayed span/etc bridge is a major undertaking. A simple causeway type bridge, not so much. Also much harder to completely destroy - you can damage sections, to be sure, but most of the rest of the sections will be relatively undamaged unless you specifically hit them too.

[–] DrakeAlbrecht@lemmy.world 52 points 3 days ago

[–] Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

I don't believe it, what's the catch? They only had one rope bridge?

[–] daychilde@lemmy.world 36 points 3 days ago (2 children)

In slight fairness......... 2030 is not nearly as far away as it feels like it should be. :)

[–] glitch1985@lemmy.world 16 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I don't like you anymore.

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[–] kingshrubb@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago

https://unwall.app/www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/satellite-images-show-iran-is-rebuilding-fast-199978f7

[–] TomMasz@lemmy.world 30 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You can speed things up in the US simply by spotting Trump a few million.

[–] AmyAye@nord.pub 22 points 3 days ago

Yeah but the work will be shoddier than of you just invested a million more in your buddy's bridge guy.

[–] JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

I guess the iranians have a different definition of 'decapitated' than that in american english.

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