Consider a tug-of-war between two people who pull in opposite directions on the ends of a rope. By Newton's third law, the force that $A$ exerts on $B$ is just as great as the force that $B$ exerts on $A$. So what determines who wins? 

According to Newton's third law, during tug of war the men exert greater force on the ground to get an opposite reaction force against the other team. The greater the force they exert on the ground more reaction force they can gather to pull the rope leading to a net force in their favor.

So option 1 is correct.