The territory's apparent barrenness belies its richness in key 21st-century resources — and this isn't the first time the United States has tried to take it.

NUUK, Greenland — The people of Greenland, the Inuit, the people of the farthest north, are famously quiet. At church, you can barely hear them when they sing. In conversation, you have to lean in. This doesn’t mean they are passive. They eat polar bears.