I just thought of a way that Porre could both rise quickly, and why they're so militaristic in Chrono Cross.
Forgive me if this has been addressed before.
If you look around Termina in CC, you notice that the Porre flag is at once everyone, as are its men. This is reminiscent of a martialed town, but if you look at the flags, then they kind of look like a swastika if you cut off two of the "legs". Kinda like Nazi's, yeah?
Anyway, a theory about Porre, which I came up while looking at this, suggests that they also rose to power quickly because a militaristic, idealistic man rose up and began to lead Porre on the fast track to militarism. The leader rallied the citizens and soldiers behind a common cause (possibly saying that any and all hardships suffered by them was because of Guardia and its evil might), and used that to build the citizens' loyalty to him. He then mobilized the country, sending people to both El Nido and Fiona's Forest for raw materials. Like the Nazis, he hid a rapidly growing army behind "gun clubs" (since Porreans were "above" swords), "science clubs," (labs hidden in the best spot: out in the open, developing new technology rapidly), and so forth.
It took Nazi Germany about 8 years, plus or minus a few, to grow as big as it did behind Hitler. By comparison, we could say that due to the accelerated rate of everything in the Chrono world, it would take about 4 years for Porre to become the power like it did. Following its amazing power growth, it then proceeded to take over Zenan, most likely starting with Guardia first. Using technology both researched and reverse-engineered or simply used from El Nido, they would quickly take over, using a uniformly advanced army/navy and possibly even Air Force.
So... thoughts?