I am responding to you, and disagreeing with your claim that the first of your options is a viable long-term equilibrium, contending that that is only true under the degenerate condition of a single sovereignty, otherwise it is a metastable state [0], not a stable long-term equilibrium.
I prefer later. As nuclear weapons are the great equalizer. A country with larger conventional army won't be able to bully smaller one... And you really need that sort of capability for equilibrium.
I clearly stated that equilibrium is only attainable if everyone has access to nuclear weapons - as in every single sovereign nation - or no one.
I prefer an equilibrium of the latter kind.