Per interviews, the initial impetus wasn't to withstand a nuclear attack - but after it was first set up, it most certainly a major part of the thought process in design. https://web.archive.org/web/20151104224529/https://www.wired...

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charcircuit 13 hours ago | parent [-]

>but after it was first set up

Your link is talking about work Baran did before ARPANET was created. The timeline doesn't back your point. And when ARPANET was created after Baran's work with Rand:

>Wired: The myth of the Arpanet – which still persists – is that it was developed to withstand nuclear strikes. That's wrong, isn't it?

>Paul Baran: Yes. Bob Taylor1 had a couple of computer terminals speaking to different machines, and his idea was to have some way of having a terminal speak to any of them and have a network. That's really the origin of the Arpanet. The method used to connect things together was an open issue for a time.

	▲	oidar 12 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Read the whole article. And peruse the oral history here: https://ethw.org/Oral-History:Paul_Baran - the genesis was most definitely related to the cold war. "A preferred alternative would be to have the ability to withstand a first strike and the capability of returning the damage in kind. This reduces the overwhelming advantage by a first strike, and allows much tighter control over nuclear weapons. This is sometimes called Second Strike Capability."