As the president-elect's call to buy—or take—a sovereign country moves from punchline to possibility, a look at the real stakes of the Arctic’s mounting cold war.

President-elect Trump's talk of Canada as a "51st state" and annexing Greenland registered among national-security crowds as an "Oh, boy!" moment. Obnoxious, enticing, familiar. Why it matters: The darlings of Trump's current foreign policy fixation boast Arctic utility at a time when the icy region is heating up.

The Arctic recently made headlines after Donald Trump repeated his desire to buy Greenland. Trump cited national security interests, but for many the territory's vast mineral wealth is the main attraction. Yet economic development elsewhere in the vast polar region has ground to a halt.