Confinement in (2+1)-dimensional gauge theories at weak coupling

In axial gauge, the (2 + 1)-dimensional SU(N) Yang-Mills theory is equivalent to a set of (1 + 1)-dimensional integrable models with a non-local coupling between charge densities. This fact makes it possible to determine the static potential between charges at weak coupling in an anisotropic version of the theory and understand features of the spectrum. We briefly mention a few open problems.