This paper proposes a generalized sequential slotted amplify and forward (GSSAF) strategy for single-antenna wireless cooperative networks. The diversity and multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) is analyzed. Applications to cooperative multiple relay channels, cooperative broadcast channels (CBC) and cooperative multiple access channels are considered and the DMT upper bound is proven to be achievable for each case. Other than proposing the best known near-optimal strategy for CBC, another important contribution is to show that GSSAF can be used as a unified strategy to achieve DMT optimality in wireless cooperative networks with unit multiplexing gains.