Reinforcing the Spooks

North Korea's conventional military probably couldn't defend their own territory let alone successfully invade South Korea. The northern regime downgraded the military in favor of a strategy of relying on spies to keep the people and army in line and nukes to keep foreign threats at bay. (Spooks and nukes.)

One of their few actual effective PDRK military assets has eroded away as it has been allocated to the spooks' assets:

While the North Korean special operations troops are grumbling, and not getting all the training resources (ammo and fuel) they need, they remain a highly motivated, and generally loyal, force. The government uses these troops to insure the loyalty of the other 85 percent of the military, and more and more elite troops are being used to assist the secret police in going after dissidents and corrupt officials. This is probably hurting the North Korean special operations forces more than anything else. The troops are getting a close look at the corruption and contradictions in North
Korea. The troops generally lived in closed bases and don't get out much. But now that they do, they see a North Korea that is unpleasant, and not as swell as their commanders told them it was. It turns out those letters they were getting from home were not exaggerating how bad things were. And the trend has been down for so long, it's hard to assure the troops that there's any way up.

Only a few thousand truly elite forces remain intact. That isn't much of an invasion threat. It remains to be seen if the special forces will help the spooks much for very long.