Brad Cooper (admiral)

• 1. Introduction

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  Admiral Brad Cooper wrote a letter to U.S. troops in the Middle East, telling them they would "change the course of human history." On the 28th of February 2026, on the order of President Donald Trump, he began the American airstrikes on Iran. Cooper commands United States Central Command and has led U.S. forces through the 2026 Iran war.

  How did a career surface warfare officer, a man trained for the decks of destroyers and cruisers, end up in that chair? What did he tell the president before the first strike, and what did he leave unsaid? And what did he claim when the fighting paused?

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• 2. Army Family, Navy Career

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  Charles Bradford Cooper II was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1967, the son of a United States Army officer. His father and grandfather had both served in the Army. He attended Sidney Lanier High School in Montgomery, Alabama, and then chose the sea. In 1989 he graduated from the United States Naval Academy with a bachelor of science degree in economics.

  A master's degree in strategic intelligence came later, from the National Intelligence University. He also studied national security policy and international relations at Harvard and Tufts universities. He is a graduate of the United States Army Command and General Staff College as well, a nod to the uniform his family wore.

  Aboard USS Thomas S. Gates, Cooper served as Combat Information Center officer. He was operations officer of USS Fitzgerald and USS Anzio, and executive officer of USS Vicksburg. He was also flag aide to the commander of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group.

  His own commands were the destroyer USS Russell and the cruiser USS Gettysburg. In 2013, Gettysburg and its crew won the Battenberg Cup, which named it the best vessel in the United States Fleet Forces Command, the Navy's Atlantic fleet. Cooper received the Legion of Merit for his work as the ship's captain.

  Cooper has been described as one of the most decorated officers in the U.S. military. He was briefly a fellow of the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies. At home, his wife Susan is a speech-language pathologist, and the couple has two children.

  Cooper took part in at least 13 named operations. The list includes the Gulf War and three counter-narcotics operations off the coast of South America. He worked Haitian migrant operations, enforced the no-fly zone over Bosnia and Herzegovina, and took part in operations in the buildup to the Kosovo War. Three maritime interdiction operations in the Persian Gulf targeted Saddam Hussein's Iraq. After the 9/11 attacks he deployed to the Arabian Sea, and he also served a deployment in the Western Pacific. The last entry on the list was the war in Afghanistan, where his job was advising rather than sailing.

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• 3. Advisor and Aide

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  In Afghanistan, Cooper was assigned to Combined Security Transition Command and served as division chief for strategic reform of the Afghan Police and Border Guards. He was also the principal U.S. Advisor to the Interior Minister of Afghanistan.

  Cooper's shore posts included the Office of the Secretary of Defense, U.S. Africa Command and U.S. Pacific Fleet headquarters. He was senior military assistant to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. He was special assistant to the commander of the U.S. Africa Command, and flag aide to the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

  In 2011, Cooper was executive director of a White House campaign called "Joining Forces." Second Lady Jill Biden launched it, and First Lady Michelle Obama promoted it. Its purpose was to raise support in the private sector for assisting military families and veterans.

  At Navy Personnel Command, Cooper served as both Deputy Director and Director of Surface Warfare Officer assignments. He held the director's post when he was nominated for promotion to rear admiral in July 2016. Two months later, he would take command of U.S. Naval Forces Korea.

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• 4. Flag Rank Commands

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  In September 2016, Cooper became commander of United States Naval Forces Korea. His sailors received the Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation, the first such recognition of a Navy unit since the Korean War. The ROK-US Alliance Friendship Association gave him the Korean name Goo Tae-il, in honor of his service to the Korean peninsula.

  Cooper gave up the Korea command in January 2018 and moved to Okinawa, Japan, as commander of Expeditionary Strike Group 7. There he led the U.S. military's first F-35 deployment. He also led the Navy response to typhoon damage in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, and the joint task force that supported the 2018 APEC summit.

  From 2019 to 2020, Cooper served as the Navy's chief of legislative affairs. In that job he led the Navy's engagement with the U.S. Congress on budget issues.

  In June 2020, he took command of Naval Surface Force Atlantic. He launched initiatives to expand mental healthcare access for sailors and to improve fleet-wide readiness, and he oversaw the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He relinquished command in March 2021. A month later, in April 2021, he was nominated for promotion to vice admiral and for a posting in Bahrain.

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• 5. Fifth Fleet and Red Sea

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  On the 5th of May 2021, Cooper took command in Bahrain of three posts at once: U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, U.S. Fifth Fleet and Combined Maritime Forces.

  After the October 7 attacks in Israel and the start of the Gaza war in 2023, Cooper worked closely with General Michael Kurilla, the head of United States Central Command. Together they handled the response to attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, Syria, Jordan and the Red Sea.

  Cooper visited Israel frequently during his Fifth Fleet tour. He became acquainted with every general and many colonels in the Israel Defense Forces. He established "unprecedented" cooperation between the Fifth Fleet and the Israeli Navy, and he expanded partnerships with other regional navies.

  In December 2023, the U.S. Navy began Operation Prosperity Guardian to defend merchant ships from attacks by the Houthis in Yemen. Cooper played a central role. Another operation, Poseidon Archer, ran in the southern Red Sea. Over the tour he expanded multi-national maritime partnerships, established the Navy's first unmanned and artificial intelligence Task Force, and led operations countering Iranian and Houthi activity.

  In February 2024, Cooper assumed command as deputy commander of United States Central Command. That same month he told the media that the actions against the Houthis were the largest and most intense operation of the U.S. Navy since World War II.

  He also organized the maritime corridor that briefly increased the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza in 2024. That summer he visited the Strait of Mandeb to examine the Houthi attacks on shipping in person. In June 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced his nomination to lead Central Command.

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• 6. A Sailor at Central Command

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  Army general James Mingus had been expected to receive the Central Command job. The Trump administration chose Cooper instead. The decision was interpreted as putting naval operations first, ahead of a potential confrontation with Iran and the ongoing mission against the Houthis.

  Kurilla recommended Cooper to Trump, who took that into consideration and passed over several other candidates. Like Kurilla, Cooper is a critic of Iran and a supporter of Israel.

  Cooper was promoted to admiral on the 29th of June 2025. On the 8th of August 2025 he succeeded Kurilla. He became the first naval officer to hold the post since William J. Fallon in 2008. The command had traditionally gone to Army or Marine generals.

  At his nomination hearing, Cooper said the U.S. should keep its military presence in Syria as part of the war against the Islamic State. He also said it should work with the Syrian transitional government against ISIS. In September 2025, he visited Damascus and met Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and U.S. special envoy Tom Barrack. They discussed counter-Islamic State cooperation and future U.S.-Syrian engagement.

  On the 21st of January 2026, Cooper spoke by phone with al-Sharaa about the ceasefire with the Syrian Democratic Forces during the northeastern Syria offensive. They also discussed moving Islamic State detainees from Syria to Iraq. The next day, in Erbil, he met SDF commander-in-chief Mazloum Abdi, together with Barrack. They discussed implementation, integration and continued U.S. support for the ceasefire. Within days of that meeting, Cooper's schedule turned toward Israel.

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• 7. Road to War

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  Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir met Cooper in Tel Aviv on the 24th of January 2026. The talks took place amid a broader U.S. military buildup in the Middle East, and other senior officials joined to reinforce close strategic cooperation.

  Zamir was critical in convincing Cooper that a war with Iran would be viable. Cooper then gave his support to the first two steps of the proposed Israeli plan. These were the assassination of Ali Khamenei and strikes against Iran's ballistic missile and drone programs.

  Cooper had conducted his own debriefing of Israeli-U.S. actions during the Twelve-Day War. He had also continued the regional air defense partnerships that Kurilla started, and he began preparations for a possible second conflict.

  In his talks with Trump, Cooper concentrated on the military aspects of such an operation. He did not dwell on whether going to war would be a good decision. Nor did he emphasize the risk from a possible closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

  On the 6th of February 2026, Cooper took part in indirect negotiations between Iran and the United States in Muscat, Oman. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner joined him there. The following day, at his invitation, Witkoff and Kushner visited him aboard USS Abraham Lincoln.

  Cooper and his team spent the weeks before the war identifying targets in Iran that let it project power beyond its borders. On the 26th of February, Cooper and Joint Chiefs chairman Dan Caine briefed Trump on the military options regarding Iran.

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• 8. Claims of Victory

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  On the first day of the war, Cooper stated that the goal of CENTCOM's operation was to dismantle the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

  Once the war began, Cooper was in almost daily contact with Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir. He also coordinated with almost a dozen Arab countries. Cooper focused the American campaign on Iran's military capabilities, including its missile launch sites and its navy. Targets tied to the goal of regime change were left to Israel.

  On the 3rd of March, Cooper issued an update claiming that the Iranian Navy had been eliminated. On the 5th of March he said the next phase would target Iran's missile production capacity.

  On the 11th of March, Cooper confirmed that the military was using artificial intelligence tools in the war. He added that "humans will always make final decisions" on targeting.

  After the ceasefire took effect, Cooper claimed on the 9th of April that the U.S. and Israel had inflicted a "generational military defeat" on Iran. He said its conventional military "has been eliminated."

  In Manama on the 13th of April, Cooper and Fifth Fleet commander Curt Renshaw met King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain and his prime minister, Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa. Two days later, Cooper announced that the naval blockade of Iran was "fully implemented." He said all maritime traffic to and from Iran was "completely halted."

  Central Command made plans to resume combat operations against Iran. On the 29th of April, Cooper reportedly briefed Trump on military options, again with Dan Caine. On the 4th of May, he said the Navy had set up a "defense umbrella" for ships to pass the Strait of Hormuz, as part of Operation Project Freedom.

  Testifying to Congress on the 14th of May, Cooper claimed the war had achieved all its objectives to "significantly degrade" Iran's military capabilities. He also acknowledged that Iran still has the ability to threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. He said the U.S. has military options for reopening the strait. Whether those options would ever be used was the question left hanging after that testimony.

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