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.