Well it's similar to pillar to the extent that it's cheaper, but that's about it. The main concern here is that you want UEF combo to be more expensive, but when the mix is proper, it actually beats sheer navy brute force. For that to happen, you need to toy with the costs. By making the Valiant slightly cheaper you make it easier to induce a faster T2 transition for UEF navy as you will want to make a Valiant or two before anything else. Then, the cheaper destroyer helps cover some of the mass put into support units so that the brute force navies the UEF would face don't stomp them. Ideally you implement Coopers into the mix once the opponent swaps into T2 and you need the range/torp damage to compete. Bulwarks exist more to increase the margin of mismicro for Coopers but it can help out Valiants too if you're facing a Cybran extremely stubborn about using Tridents.
Instead, since UEF has the technically complicated unit mix, you want to encourage sniping the weak points of the mix to THEN let the brute force navies roll it over. The best ways to encourage that is by making the Coopers a snipe target due to their low HP and if radar was actually transferred over to t1 subs, then it would make them a target to ruin the efficiency of Coopers too.