Self-licking ice cream cone

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,[1] 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.

In The Irish Times, Kevin Courtney observed that "many organisations are also stuck in limbo, destined to keep lurching on without ever achieving their stated goal.

"[4] The Cold War infrastructure has also been compared to a self-licking ice cream cone, given that expensive projects continued to be financed long after world communism had ceased to pose a viable threat.

[7] In sports, the United States college football Bowl Alliance was criticised using the term.