A shaky truce amid an escalation in rhetoric. Rumors of spies and subterfuge. Cheap insults hurled from the west. And state-sponsored muscle flying in to peaceful Adamsville.

Growing hostilities between Adamsville and Hot Springs, Ark. could come to a head Sunday, when the fourth annual ‘World’s Shortest St. Paddy’s Day’ parade steps off at 3 p.m. The big question before the big day, though: Is anyone really, really good at arm wrestling?

Adamsville and Hot Springs have been throwing barbs for four years, after a group of Little Compton friends founded what is truly the world’s shortest St. Paddy’s Day parade, at 89 feet. Hot Springs’ “World’s Shortest” parade, at 98 feet, has been around a lot longer and clearly is not as short, but that hasn’t stopped parade organizers in Arkansas from taking digs at Adamsville when they see an opening.

The latest: Arkansas organizer Steve Arrison called Rhode Island “Rogue Island” and said last week that “we were okay” with Adamsville claiming the world’s shortest parade, until recently. But then he heard that Adamsville’s celebration won’t be on Monday, March 17 this year, and “that did it for us.”

“They should rename it ‘The World’s Shortest Day Before St. Patrick’s Day parade,” he said.

So Arrison got on the phone with Michael “The Monster” Todd and his wife Rebecca, Arkansas residents who together hold many national and international arm wrestling titles, and asked them to fly to Rhode Island “to help our friends ... understand the way a calendar works.”

Airplane tickets were purchased, weights are presumably being lifted, Bengay has been or probably should be purchased, and some time this weekend Mike The Monster and wife Rebecca will arrive in town.

“Michael was our parade king last year,” Arrison said. “He’ll arm-wrestle (Adamsville organizer) Chuck Kinnane if diplomacy fails.”

Kinnane said Monday that he is fine with that, and will likely send his son, 9 years old, to take on The Monster.

“He’s huge,” Kinnane said of his son. “We’re assuming they’re coming in peace. But we’re ready for anything.”

This year’s parade runs rain or shine, and it will be followed by a corned beef and cabbage dinner in a huge tent behind the Kinnane compound on Main Road, just west of Route 81. New England Patriots great Troy Brown will be the guest of honor.

The parade and dinner benefits local food pantries, and while tickets for the dinner sold out the week they went on sale last month, Kinnane said there will hopefully be additional meals to purchase onsite.

This year’s musical guests include Sharks Come Cruisin,’ a Providence-based sea shanty band that takes its name from a line about the USS Indianapolis spoken by Quint, the shark hunter, in Jaws. There will be many other bands, and this year there will be a float contest as well.

The parade steps off at 3 p.m. and dinner follows soon after.

If you plan on coming to town for the event, get there early — last year’s running drew roughly 2,000 people, and parking spaces were hard to come by. And if you know any arm wrestlers, spread the word.