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. Since then, the term has been used to describe the purported habit of government-funded organisations and programs spending taxpayer money to lobby for more funding from the taxpayer. Other things compared have included
financial bubbles,
chatshows and
reality television. 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. That’s because their real goal is simply to carry on regardless." 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.
Richard Hoggart used the term to describe certain
United Nations programmes.
Franklin C. Spinney used the term to refer to the
military–industrial complex. ==See also==