Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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.

>History

>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.

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