Some of those who criticized US foreign policy at the time contended that US power in the Cold War was used only to pursue an economically-driven agenda of capitalism. They claim that the underlying economic motivation eroded any claims of moral superiority, leaving the hostile acts (in Korea, Hungary, Cuba, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Nicaragua) to stand on their own. In contrast, those who justified US interventions in the Cold War period always cast these as being motivated by the need to contain totalitarianism and thus fulfilled a higher moral imperative.