Italy approves controversial bridge tying Sicily to mainland

This bridge is actually a big deal in terms of economic prosperity for Sicilians. It's also very technically challenging if not necessarily the longest bridge to build. The area is seismically active, regularly battles high winds, and the strait is rather deep for how narrow it is.

So to reach the sea floor you need to submerge your span supports nearly 250 meters in choppy, fast-flowing water while also leaving enough room for regional shipping traffic. If you want to avoid that and build a suspension bridge--then it would surpass the current longest by 4,000 meters and you're then battling the wind and seismic activity.

Then there's the additional logistical issue of making sure corrupt southern italian mafioso don't hoover up construction contracts and bleed the project dry of funding.

As the article states, the distance between Italy and Sicily is around 2 miles (3 km), which makes this bridge unimpressive in terms of overall length, as there are hundreds of bridges longer than that. The article claims this would be the world's longest bridge, comparing it to Çanakkale 1915 Bridge, which isn't the world's longest bridge, but rather the bridge with the longest unsupported span at 2 km. There's no artist rendering of the proposed bridge, and no mention of whether Italy was planning to build this bridge in such a way that the main span would be over 2 km. This distinction means the difference between unremarkable, or modern engineering marvel.

I love the NATO spending angle on this.

Promise to spend more on military. Build bridge. Call the bridge military. Success.