If I had times, I would write a short political essay about this. I was thinking at the A team or all the vigilante stuff in the US pop culture. USA is the one of the place where you can find "vigilantes" as a cultural phenomenon (I mean superheros that may protect the Earth as well as human beings). Those superheros should be seen as a particular type of mercenaries (not "soldier of fortune" who works for gold but rather because they have higher intents: they do it because that is their mission).Of course, we can find mercs everywhere but this is so important in the US that this concept has been spread in the pop culture. You cannot find the french A Team or the german Watchmen. What I want to point here is the cultural spread of vigilantes in the pop culture could be seen as a metaphor of how citizen trust their Nation. The consequences is that...

WOW I stop here, mixing media studies and political sciences... that's not my field, I have 0 legitimity... It was just quick thoughts...