Remember the first Iraq War? The mother of all battles as Saddam called it and he kept talking tough like Kim Jong. We attacked and all the soldiers quit.
The Iraqi soldiers had vast stretches of desert to fade into, the NOKO have no where to go and know that they would be shot on sight as well as their families.
They are, however, rumored to be increasingly ill-fed. So food might be an angle, as well as their ability to keep up the physical strength to actually fight.