Is there really a plan, though? I mean the 'Eagle Plan' seems much more viable than the 'Fellowship Plan'. The fellowship was so bad it even included a couple humans who were pre-disposed to the rings affects and, as such, didn't last too long.
Indeed. Gandalf was more interested in guaranteeing the supply of "pipe-weed," an addictive drug transported and sold throughout Middle Earth for great profit. Gandalf is smoking it constantly.
The whole ring story is just an imperialist narrative constructed to justify preemptive warfare on the "lesser" races of Mordor by the military-industrial complex in Gondor. Gandalf knows the ring is powerless; it's merely symbolic. After he becomes a Grand Wizard-- sorry, White Wizard, Gandalf feels ready to lead the war on the inferior races who speak the "black speech."
"How do you think these wizards build gigantic towers and mighty fortresses? Where do they get the money? Keep in mind that I do not especially regard anyone, Saruman included, as an agent for progressivism. But obviously the pipe-weed operation that exists is the dominant influence in Middle Earth. It’s not some ludicrous magical ring."
