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Originally Posted by The 1,000 Reader
"And forth went Morgoth, and he was halted by the elves. Then went Sauron, who was stopped by a dog and then aged men. Finally, there came the Witch-King, who destroyed Arnor, but nobody seems to remember that."
-A History of Villains
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Is that actually a published book? Whoever wrote it obviously has no clue what he's talking about.
Morgoth was originally more powerful than all the other Valar combined. He was later diminished and defeated, as all enemies eventually were in Middle-earth, but that does not mean he was not the greatest being Middle-earth had ever seen. Huan was a very powerful creature, possibly Maiarin, with destiny on his side. Gil-galad, Elendil, and Isildur and their armies are not "aged men." Sauron had some bad luck with his opponents, but he was unequivocally the most powerful of Melkor's servants. The Witch-King, on the other hand, was nothing before being enslaved by Sauron, and even then he fled
twice from Glorfindel. He didn't even make Gandalf flinch in their encounter, and a little Rohan woman told him to kiss off. He was then obliterated by an ancient dagger held by a Hobbit.
While I'm at it, I may as well address some of your post. First, there's no reason to believe dragons had any real spiritual power. Glaurung might be an exception, but he also might have just benefited from Morgoth exerting influence at the time of his havoc-wreaking. Second, Tulkas captured Morgoth after he had been significantly weakened. More than creating an exception to my explanation above, this gives us a better concept of Tulkas' true strength. Third, Shelob is just a distant relative to Ungoliante, not Ungoliante herself. The latter was incredibly powerful, the former was a big fat spider. Not only that, but Sting was a pretty excellent little blade, imbued with an ancient power.
And finally for good measure, I'll reiterate that Gandalf never broke a sweat in front of the Witch-King, and nobody's ever been able to produce any piece of text or any compelling argument to indicate otherwise, whereas everything Tolkien ever wrote about Gandalf supports that he was far superior to the Nerd-King.