Likely your latter scenario . The Soviet collapse destabilized so many other parts of the world, making them ripe for the picking for the US and other NATO countries. The Middle East was never more exploited then after the Fall of the USSR. And Africa was never more ignored. Until China got its feet under it.

I would say the cold war thawed a great deal but the Russians probably feel like some old school american's do that it was better with a big bad nemesis lurking around.

ISIS and all its stupid shit are scarey and all but they will never be as good a "bad guy" as the Soviets were. The Russians (well, Putin mostly), at least from an American standpoint, seem to want to make the US their "bad guy" and get back to the good old days of nuclear weapon stockpiling, arms races, and unchecked military spending. Lets get that war cold again, there is so much more profit to be made.

To bad China is in a way better place to be the world-wide Nemesis. China would not be what it is today (good and bad) if the Soviets had stuck around.