[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by denethorthefirst

1. Narrow Definition of the Powers of the One Ring:

The only function of the One Ring was to dominate (the bearers of) the other Rings of Power and to somehow enhance Saurons ability to dominate other wills.
If you ascribe to that definition, the Ring was essentially a failure: Elves and Dwarves never fell for the Rings and in my opinion the other 9 were never really necessary for Sauron to establish his Rule over the eastern/southern Men. The usefullness of the Nazgul is also questionable. The only useful effect of the Ring in this scenario is that it functioned as an „anchor“ after the corporeal death of the fully incarnated Sauron at the end of the Second Age and so allowed for the Re-Incarnation of his Fea after a thousand years.

Hello, denethorthefirst, and welcome to the Downs.

I would think the "narrow" view to be correct. Tolkien stated in Letters # 141:

The Elves of Eregion made Three supremely beautiful and powerful rings, almost solely of their own imagination, and directed to the preservation of beauty...But secretly...Sauron made One Ring, the Ruling Ring that contained the powers of all the others, and controlled them, so that its wearer could see the thoughts of all those that used the lesser rings, could govern all that they did, and in the end could utterly enslave them.

So the making the Three was not Sauron's idea: he had been instructing the Elves in making first the "lesser" rings, then the Nine and the Seven. Nevertheless, since the Three were made with techniques learned from Sauron, they fell under the same net as the others.
From that passage, it seems clear that domination was the prime motive for Sauron's ring-making.
Later, in the same letter, there's this:

Eregion was captured and destroyed, and Sauron seized many Rings of Power. These he gave, for their ultimate corruption and enslavement, to those who would accept them (out of ambition or greed).

"Corruption and enslavement". Yes, Sauron already commanded his own servants, and had many willing followers among Men. But to Sauron, mere obedience was not enough. If it had been, why could he not have used his influence on the Noldor on Eregion to indice them over time to evil? No, a Sauron is much happier when his foes are made to serve him against their will.
Finally, in the same letter, Tolkien notes the inherent peril of Sauron's transfer of his power to the Ring:

This was the essential weakness he had introduced into his situation in his effort (largely unsuccessful) to enslave the Elves, and in his desire to establish a control over the minds and wills of his servants.

The largest oversight on Sauron's part was his failure to account for the perception of the Elves. I don't know that he could really be blamed for that, any more than he could necessarily have known that the Dwarves would have such an innate resistance to domination, and could not be made into wraiths.

He was certainly aware of his own fate if the Ring were ever to be taken from him forcibly or destroyed, but the odds of that happening were almost nil. Again, he can't really be too denigrated for his lack of foresight. Gandalf called him a "wise fool", and that's what he was. He saw Middle-earth as his for the taking if he made a small gamble, so he did so.

Originally Posted by denethorthefirst

Another Question would be where the other Rings got their Power from?

Since the Nine and Seven had the power of invisibility, my thought is that their power was derived from Sauron. Though those rings had been a joint effort between him and the Elves, he could still have allowed some of his power to pass into them

As for the Three, they were made with the Elvish ideals of healing a preservation in mind, and those were, I think, part of the nature of all their race. Perhaps the Noldor, being especially powerful among their kindred, had enough of that sort of spiritual power collectively that it passed into the Three. That's just my guess, at the moment.