In the Cold War context, the term was and is most commonly used by anticommunists as an accusation of formal fallacy for leftist criticisms of United States foreign policy and military conduct.
The big picture, they would say, justified the tortures carried out by the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, as it served to weaken the totalitarian communist camp and in time bring about the freedom of those under its domination.
"[3] Leftist critics usually argued that the United States itself created a "moral equivalence" when some of its actions, such as President Ronald Reagan's support for the Contra insurgency against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, put it on the same level of immorality as the Soviet Union.
[citation needed] Moral equivalence has featured in debates over NATO expansion, the overthrow of rogue states, the invasion of Iraq, and the War on Terror.
Concepts of moral hierarchy have been applied to foreign policy challenges such as Islamic fundamentalists, anti-Israel powers, Russia, China, drug traffickers, and Serbian nationalists.