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St. Thomas Aquinas believed that a war needed to be a just one for it to be morally good. St. Thomas Aquinas had different criteria for the war and its justified means. His reasons were as follows: self-defense, peaceful means failed, triumph, proportionality, and the double effect. In a just war, self-defense plays a big role. Self-defense is an act when you try and protect yourself when being attacked. If there is self-defense in a war that already tells us that the war is unjust. For someone to protect themselves this means that the war was an unexpected or quick attack. Force may not be used to acquire control over understanding but can establish new means of peace than those that preceded the war. Also, St. Thomas Aquinas states that self-defense should only be preformed for the good of man. Most people who wage for war want, in return, peace and so they are not opposed to peace except for evil peace. St. Thomas Aquinas states: “we do not seek peace in order to be at war, but we go to war that we may have peace. Be peaceful, therefore, in warring, so that you may vanquish those whom you are against, and bring them to the prosperity of peace.” This doesn’t