  We review the recent progress made in studies of deuteron structure at small
internucleon distances. This progress is largely facilitated by the new
generation of experiments in deuteron electrodisintegration carried out at
unprecedentedly high momentum transfer. The theoretical analysis of these data
confirms the onset of the high energy eikonal regime in the scattering process
which allows one to separate long range nuclear effects from the effects
genuinely related to the short distance structure of the deuteron. Our
conclusion is that for the first time the deuteron is probed at relative
momenta beyond 300 MeV/c without dominating long range effects. As a result, at
these large nucleon momenta the cross section is sensitive to the nuclear
dynamics at sub-fermi distances. Due to large internal momenta involved we are
dealing with the relativistic bound state that is best described by the
light-cone momentum distribution of nucleons in the deuteron. We present the
first attempt of extracting the deuteron light-cone momentum distribution
function from data and discuss the importance of this quantity for studies of
QCD structure of the bound nucleon in deep inelastic scattering off the
deuteron. We conclude the review giving an outlook of the next generation of
high energy experiments which will extend our reach to much smaller distances
in the deuteron.
