https://siliconfolklore.com/internet-history/
> Rumors had persisted for years that the ARPANET had been built to protect national security in the face of a nuclear attack. It was a myth that had gone unchallenged long enough to become widely accepted as fact.
No, the Internet (inclusive of ARPANET, NSFNet, and so on) was not designed to survive a nuclear war. It's the worst kind of myth: One you can cite legitimate sources for, because it's been repeated long enough even semi-experts believe it.
The ARPANET was made to help researchers and to justify the cost of a mainframe computer:
> It's understandable how it could spread. Military communications during Nuclear War makes a more memorable story than designing a way to remote access what would become the first massively parallel computer, the ILLIAC IV. The funding and motivation for building ARPANET was partially to get this computer, once built, to be "online" in order to justify the cost of building it. This way more scientists could use the expensive machine.
That's a valiant attempt at myth-fighting, but it doesn't fully convince me. For example, one hop to Wikipedia gives this:
> Later, in the 1970s, ARPA did emphasize the goal of "command and control". According to Stephen J. Lukasik, who was deputy director (1967–1970) and Director of DARPA (1970–1975):
> "The goal was to exploit new computer technologies to meet the needs of military command and control against nuclear threats, achieve survivable control of US nuclear forces, and improve military tactical and management decision making."
> That's a valiant attempt at myth-fighting, but it doesn't fully convince me. For example, one hop to Wikipedia gives this:
And in that same Wikipedia section there are 3-4 other people, including Herzfeld, who was the guy/director who authorized the actual starting of the project, who say otherwise:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET#Creation
Meanwhile you cherrypick 1-2 paragraphs at the end, while there are over a dozen that say the opposite. Note that Kukasik was later the director of DARPA, which had a completely different mandate that (no-D) ARPA.