The Research Department's principal roles involve the analysis of information gathered by Aman's collection units and from the Intelligence Community at large; and forming tactical, strategic, and operative assessments, as well as reporting on the likelihood of war, and presenting these to military and political decisionmakers, including the Prime Minister.
Israel is the only liberal-democracy in the world where military intelligence is charged with assessing the intelligence map on a national, military, and state levels, and there have been repeated calls to transfer some of these roles from the Research Department to a civilian body, such as the National Security Council, as is the case in the United States.
Although on the operative and tactical level, the Research Department has often proven quite successful, on the strategic and political front it has committed crucial failures which had a decisive impact on the course of Israeli and regional history.
The Agranat Commission, which investigated the failures of the war, very severely criticized Research in particular and the Intelligence Community, in general.
A host of high-ranking intelligence officers were dismissed, most notably Aman Director, Aluf Eli Zeira, and head of Research, Brigadier-General Aryeh Shalev.