Sen. Lindsey Graham took his latest step toward a potential 2016 presidential run Thursday, launching a new exploratory committee to help him “test the waters” and decide whether to make the jump into the GOP primaries.

The South Carolina Republican made the announcement official on “America’s Newsroom” Thursday morning.

“Well, I’m going to take a look at the presidential primary on the Republican side. We’ll have an organization up and running today called, Security Through Strength, and this organization will allow people to donate money and their time and resources to see if there is a pathway forward for me,” Graham told Fox News Channel’s Martha MacCallum.

“Ronald Reagan famously said his goal was to have peace through strength,” Graham said. “In my view you could never have peace with radical Islam. They want to destroy us and our way of life, so peaceful coexistence is a nonstarter from their point of view, and quite frankly from my point of view.”

“But you can have security. You can have a strong military, keeping the fight over there so it couldn’t come here. An economy that grows and affects everybody and energy independent America gives us security through strength,” Graham continued, “so I’m looking for security, not peace with radical Islam. That means we need partners.”

“So we’ll see if there’s a pathway forward for a guy like me,” Graham added. “Time will tell.”

The hawkish Republican has been one of the more outspoken members of the upper chamber on foreign policy and the Obama administration’s approach to terrorism in the Middle East, which undoubtedly would be a centerpiece of a potential Graham campaign.

“I think we’ve lost confidence in our president to be honest with us about the threats we face. When he called ISIL the JV team, that blew up in his face,”  the GOP senator told MaCallum. “When he said Somalia and Yemen were great examples of his counterinsurgency strategy. Now Yemen has been toppled.”

“At the end of the day, Putin is on the march, not being contained. I think people lost confidence in the president to communicate with us honestly about the threats,” Graham said. “He oversells his successes.”

Graham previously announced on Jan. 18 that he would be setting up an exploratory committee during an appearance on “Meet The Press.”