The South Korean military warned that the North "directly and blatantly demonstrated its provocative ambition to target seaports and airfields across South Korea".
Perhaps May is a split personality, leaping from authoritative self-confidence in her dealings with the police, to chaotic insecure shambolic handling of an inquiry – from polite diffidence to a wildly provocative pursuit of leadership ambition.
The provocation proved provocative.
But when Wainaina eventually grows up, the language finally catches up with the book's ambitions and his provocative style – used to such great effect in his Granta article "How to Write About Africa" – comes through.
Yet though it collapses under the weight of its ambitions, "Small Tragedy" is filled with provocative questions that American plays should be asking at a fraught and confusing moment in this country's history.
"Uribe surely has no illusions about Chávez's regional ambitions, but he wisely keeps any provocative rhetoric in check," said Michael Shifter, vice president for policy at the Inter-American Dialogue, a policy group in Washington focusing on Latin America.
There's provocative material, too – as when Ballard contrasts the respective ambitions of Isis and Hillary Clinton – even if we're never as provoked as he keeps telling us we are.
Ambition was another: Dante had written a provocative work of political philosophy suggesting the kind of state that would give man the freedom to pursue perfection — hardly a scenario in which divine grace appeared to be important.
Indeed, through the 1950s, 60s and 70s (when the free market was pretty much on the ropes) the main challenge to patrician elitism came from artists whose ambitions were culturally - and often politically - provocative.
Ross (2009), in the meantime, provides a provocative argument as to the cause of China's maritime ambitions, which is widespread nationalism in Chinese society and the military brass, rather than security, that is the driving force behind its naval buildup.
