United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, or UKMTO, in Dubai. To this day, the UK retains an outsize role in marine affairs, a legacy of when the Royal Navy patrolled an empire on which the sun never set. Even as Britain’s influence waned after the Second World War, much of the legal and administrative machinery of modern shipping remained in British hands. In the 2000s, with piracy escalating into a severe problem, the UKMTO was made responsible for connecting military forces with the merchant ships they were supposed to protect, keeping everyone communicating during a crisis.
