Not many people know that the Internet was outcome of a military venture and not a glorious venture either. The ARPA, the precursor to the internet, was launched by the Department of Defense of the US government in response to Soviet Union's launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik. The objective was to develop a mechanism which would allow the US military to retain control and counter-attack in case of a nuclear attack. At the height of the Cold War both USA and USSR were obsessed with developing "the first strike capability" since it was believed that with the destructive power both nuclear powers possessed, the party attacking first would annihilate or at least incapaciate the enemy. It was the fear of this scenario that led DoD to research and develop a mechanism that would allow the military to control nuclear missiles and bombers even if all US sites had been destroyed in the first strike. Thus ARPA/DARPA was a military apparatus and continued to exist as such though civilian researchers were being accommodated with the passage of time.
