  We discuss the applicability of pQCD to the elastic scattering of electrons
on protons and deuterons. We analyze the $Q^2$-dependence of the reduced
deuteron form factor, taking into account the recent data on the electric
proton form factor and we find that the value of the QCD-scale parameter
$\Lambda$ differs essentially from the value $\Lambda=0.1$ GeV, previously
found using the dipole parametrization of the electromagnetic nucleon form
factors $G_E$ and $G_M$. Moreover the predicted scaling behavior of the reduced
deuteron form factor can not be recovered in the Dirac and Pauli
representations for the nucleon electromagnetic form factors.
