In political jargon, a self-licking ice cream cone is a self-perpetuating system that has no purpose other than to sustain itself. The phrase appeared to have been first used in 1991–1992, in a book about Gulf War weapons systems by Norman Friedman, and On Self-Licking Ice Cream Cones, a paper by Pete Worden about NASA's bureaucracy, to describe the relationship between the Space Shuttle and Space Station.
