True -- he could have saved us a lot of trouble.

But that's why we scholars get together, right? To puzzle out such issues using what evidence we can muster.

: He did say, however, (through Gandalf) that the Ring began to respond to Sauron's malice when it left him. Hence, it appears that Sauron was unable to "connect" with the Ring at anything but the most primal level.

I suspect this is correct. Of course, at best this suggests that Sauron might have had reason to _consider_ the possibility that the ring had been destroyed. It's not enough to lead him to conclude this definitively. (There remains too much evidence to the contrary)

:If he believed the Ring had been destroyed, he may also have believed that he had retained sufficient strength to reconstitute himself.

Yes, I agree. If he is willing to ignore the continued existence of the ringwraiths and of the foundations of Barad-dur, as well as whatever he presumably thought about the ring before the end of the second age, then perhaps he could come to the conclusion that he had survived the destruction of the One ring.
But to conclude this with certainty? To reject the very possibility that the ring still existed? With this countervailing evidence staring him in the face? I don't see the logic here.

:Any initial efforts he might have made to determine if the Ring still existed apparently failed, since he didn't start searching for it until late in the third millennium.

This presumes, yet again, that we know what Sauron was doing from 1050 - 2939 T.A. But we don't. None of us have any evidence that Sauron was not pondering where the ring may have ended up all the while, and even searching for it unsuccessfully. We know only that by the 2800s Gandalf discovered that he was searching. We have no record whatsoever of when he started searching -- it was sometime _before_ Gandalf's arrival. We have no idea when.

:Hence, Sauron was simply too weak for most of the Third Age to know that the Ring existed, but he probably began to suspect something was not quite right as he continued to get stronger.

I don't follow. Once he became stronger and asserted himself, the ring apparently attempted (successfully) to make itself found. That shows in no way that he didn't strongly suspect all along that the ring still existed.

: Gandalf knew that Sauron had taken a long time to reconstitute himself and to grow strong enough to declare himself openly again while the Ring existed but was separated from its master. It's not that much of a leap of faith to conclude that the destruction of the Ring should take Sauron so low he would be too weak to trouble Middle-earth again.

I agree.

: Sauron, according to Gandalf, didn't think anyone would consider destroying the Ring. Sauron's objective was to recapture the Ring before it could be used against him (which is what he expected). People are often blinded by their own expectations and reasoning to the reasoning of others.

I think everyone agrees with this. It's the other assumption, that the ring must have been destroyed at the end of the second age, that's problematic. That one seems out of character.

: That is what Gandalf counted on, and that is why Aragorn revealed himself to Sauron in the Palantir -- to feed that expectation. Whether Aragorn revealed himself as Thorongil is a guess. It makes more sense than revealing himself as a Ranger or a kid in Rivendell. Thorongil was a war-hero, a great captain. It would give Sauron reason to believe that he had now found the Ring and was returning to Gondor to begin using it.

Well, Michael, you are a learned lore-master -- I've enjoyed looking at your Suite 101 articles. I especially liked the bit on Tharbad. I respect your views, and I will think this over.

But you seem deeply opposed, for no reason I can figure, to even considering my suggestion, namely that Aragorn appears to Sauron in the guise of the heir of Isildur, as he does at least two or three other times in the trilogy. It's remarked upon each time -- the hobbits notice what a change has come over Aragorn, how different he appears: No longer a dirty ranger in the wilderness, but a noble lord of men. Does that not satisfy all your requirements?

But in any case, that's a side issue as far as Sauron's view of the ring is concerned.

Let me propose what Gandalf should have said to Frodo:

"He thought it forever lost, or perhaps even destroyed. But now he knows beyond all doubt that it still exists, and has been found."

That would have cleared up everything, as far as I can tell.

Gandalf had insufficient evidence to make the judgment he made. And, in fact, I think his conclusion paints a very improbable picture of what the dark lord could have been expected to think. The more likely conclusion is what I've stated here.