Reaction to the "Summa Theologica"
In his third Article, St. Thomas Aquinas deals with the question as to whether it is "lawful to lay ambushes in war." (Aquinas, 506) This can be interpreted in many ways today since the weapons that our army possesses often leads to wars where the soldiers never see each other (like the Air campaign in Iraq). This more generalized view of technology in warfare could therefore be seen as a broad interpretation of what Aquinas might consider an ambush. Therefore Aquinas would consider our use of technology as "a kind of deception" and so our wars would "seem to pertain to injustice." (Aquinas, 506) Aquinas would claim that since "our enemy is our neighbor" (Aquinas, 507) we should not implement tactics that we would not want to see done to us. …
