Wake occasionally through the night to hear the election news. Waiting for Wisconsin. Florida obviously gone. Then it really is morning. And President Trump. So over to Starbucks for strong coffee and bitter analysis. We do indeed live in bizarrely interesting times. Only real advantage we can see is that Trump is not much of a hawk, but that's not a lot to go on with.
Bit of intellectual diversion in the evening. We've been booked for a week at the London School of Economics for a talk on the future of Yemen. Places by reservation, but they warn that they reserve more places than there are seats, as there are often no shows, so we go early. What we're getting is a presentation prepared for Remote Control of the Oxford Research Group. The presenters are highly informed - Ginny Hill, visiting fellow at the LSE and formerly member of the UN Panel of Experts on Yemen, and Baraa Shiban, who has investigated drone strikes and served as a member of the Yemeni National Dialogue, reviewing Yemen's laws and drafting its new constitution. There is also commentary by Helen Lackner, who lived in Yemen for years and recently wrote a book called Yemen in Crisis: Autocracy, Neoliberalism, and the Disintegration of the State. They're interesting on the subject of military engagement, and place the roots of the conflict in Yemeni society. Not a proxy war - but all the same the Saudis are the largest single customer for US arms. Difficult to assess the effects of Trump's election - he may be less interested in regime change but hard to imagine the businessman wanting to distance himself from profits. We're underinformed on this bit of the Middle East, so it's especially nice that the presentation is accompanied by an impressively produced 20 page book, map and graphs included, a study of wars and arms use in Yemen.