1.) Russian Military training and morale inproves with its cash flow (oil reciepts help greatly).
2.) President Putin priority of the military reform. To transit to professional Armed Forces Russia needs to increase its military budget at least by 25%. Purchase of armament and combat materiel also requires substantial sums. The share of the defense budget grows at least to 3.5% of GDP.
3. Russian terrorists (alot better trained than the current crop of dummies) takes US out of the equation through various terroritst attacks (the hero stops the nuclear suitcase bomb from going off during the state of the union, at least in my tale).
4. There really is no army on the planet (provided that the US is taken out of the equation) that could stop a Renewed Russian Military and a powerful China as it quests for that little Island south of them. At least that is the premise of my story. I almost believe it. The EMP bomb attack is seriously scary by the way.